In praise of MCV

In Q4 1987, at Codemasters, I ran a trade advertising campaign in CTW. As budget publishers on very tight margins there was not a lot of marketing spend, so this was a big deal. The campaign consisted of weekly mono early right hand full pages. Every week I created a new trade specific advert with the artist Nigel Fletcher (who was doing commercial work then) and delivered it directly to CTW’s printer. This enabled us to have the tightest deadlines and so make the adverts fresh and current.

This was the most successful advertising campaign of my life. We totally dominated the Gallup chart all the way up to Christmas in a way that even Electronic Arts would be envious of.

These days CTW has been replaced by MCV. And they have adapted to the internet age. You can receive the print magazine electronically anywhere in the world. There are email Daily Digests and Newsflashes and a website where you can add your input to current news stories. It provides a huge and essential service to the games industry.

So, with my experience, it amazes me that MCV isn’t a lot thicker. With advertising. Here is a marketing opportunity to reach a huge chunk of the industry, not just in the UK, but worldwide. Not only that, it is also read by a lot of journalists which gives it’s content a multiplier effect. It is a huge amount more influential than the statistics show.

Another thing that amazes me is the retail adverts that appear in there. This is just sloppy and lazy. You are reaching a completely different audience so the message you want to reach them with is completely different. It looks like some people look upon trade advertising as an afterthought to create some product awareness. When really it is an immensely powerful tool to reach a very important audience with messages targeted specifically at them.

And to give you an idea how highly I value the readership of MCV, it is the only place that I advertise this site.

As ever please add your comments.