Remember yesterday’s blogpost about cycling in China?
The one with the ridiculous GoPro video of that guy doing a back flip on his bike?
No?
Jesus, it was only yesterday, maybe you should go to the Doctor to get that looked at.
Anyway, ever since GoPro became a billion dollar company, there have been countless competitors trying to get a slice of the market.
Many are very, very good … however there’s a reason why people are still buying more of the original than the lower cost alternative and that is the fact GoPro speak to your inner daredevil whereas the competition speak blandly about ‘capturing life’ – which sounds awfully like z-grade Kodak to me.
Of course there’s other reasons – from the level of accessories that you can get for GoPro [including a remote controlled drone!!!] right through to the community they have built through their site – but let’s park that for the sake of this post.
Please? Thanks.
Anyway, to prove the point that you might not agree/care about, here’s a GoPro ad:
Look at it …
Even if you’re not a skier, that photo makes you feel ‘in the action’.
Literally in it.
You can feel the snow, the cold, the speed of the World rushing past you.
Then there’s that line, ‘Be A Hero’.
Brilliant.
Even if the most extreme thing you do is make a cup of tea during the interval of your favourite TV show [even though media people tell me no one watches telly any more. Ever] it makes you feel you are – or could be – doing something of untold bravery … something others would watch in awe as they view it from your perspective.
It’s a great line, a great, great, great line.
Now compare that to the competition …
Look at those photos.
Not one of them makes you feel ‘you’re in the moment’. Hell, they all look like they were photographed by someone on their iPhone standing at the side.
There’s no drama, emotion, sense of exhilaration or – dare I say it – danger.
It’s what a company who doesn’t really ‘understand’ their audience – or even the role of their product – makes for an ad.
Then there’s their line.
‘Life. Camera. Action.’
Jesus Christ, how bad is that.
I know it’s a play on ‘lights, camera, action’, but it’s shit.
It’s another one of those ads that talks at you, not too you.
I get they’re trying to make it sound like you can be the ‘star of your own movie’ … but the problem is they are telling you what to feel rather than just making you feel it.
And that’s one of the reasons why GoPro so good.
Sure, they have the product, the infrastructure, the distribution and the community … but you feel GoPro was created by people who live and love this life rather than just be another faceless corporation who produced a product because they wanted to get a slice of the ‘live action’ video market.
So while I appreciate no company wants to be inauthentic, an important thing to remember is that sometimes the biggest advantage you can have over the competition is not what you do, but why you do it.
The culture, not the category.
The emotion, not the technical.
The feeling, not the reasoning.
Which basically is a massive justification for why I bought a GoPro, even though the most extreme video I’ve made so far is this:
