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Having seen the recent PR campaign by Anet, I think the basic idea was good. It showcased real Guild Wars 2 players, and how friendships were formed from virtual world to real life. Bonds are real, and love was real. Congrats to anyone who met their husbands or wives from playing this game.
While I say the idea was good, the optics from the recent spotlight were really bad. On the surface, the story was indeed heartwarming, but once people actually looked into the background of the players, things started to look unnatural. Allow me to explain.
Ignoring everything else, picture this in your mind: Older man sends thousands upon thousands of dollars to a young woman online. Without the context of the story, most people will come to negative conclusions that I won't take the time to type out here.
Financially supporting a female streamer is not bad, in and of itself. We go back to the optics of the situation. You have an older man sending gifts to a good looking girl, and in turn he receives friendship/companionship. This happens all the time, in game and in the real world. Hell, I've tried to impress girls by buying them gifts. The problem I see in this situation is that the background story isn't a healthy one. I won't call the man obsessed, and I won't say the girl is taking advantage of him. My ultimate point here is that this idea is no different than a guy sending money to a webcam girl on an adult site.
Without knowing a man has been sending over $10,000 to a streamer he met online, the spotlight story would be nice. But this the internet, and people will be interested in finding out more info on the subjects of the video. And they did.
TL;DR - Anet, look into the background of your stories, and view it from all angles. An older man sending a younger girl lots of money isn't healthy, and not something to showcase.
Edit - I need to tack this on because I feel Anet is shaming me in their responses. In my OP, I tried VERY hard to not name or personally attack the two people in the latest video. I merely wanted to say that things didn't look normal when you learned the background. Yes, personal lives of others isn't anyone's business... in general. However, Anet decided to highlight a video game streamer, whose life isn't that private. We can publicly view a streamer's videos, their comments, and their life that would normally be kept private. The streamer solicits donations from strangers, as that is their means of making a living. Twitch is the vehicle of choice here, and it shows names of who donated, and in this case, how much. A father giving $10,000 to his daughter to show support for her career is not out of the norm. A man giving $10,000 to a girl he met online isn't something that happens normally. That is what doesn't look right, and it doesn't take much investigating aside from visiting the streamer's profile to see this.
Edit 2 - Marketing ad campaigns isn't easy to run, that's why there's a whole industry specialized in this. It isn't just about being artistic and creative. Psychology and Mathematics are key components as well, because you need to understand human behavior and analyze survey data points to see if a campaign's reach is optimal for the money spent. A marketing executive's responsibility is to account for all reactions to a campaign's response, not just the production and roll out of an ad.
Edit 3 - I'm sorry Anet GMs are getting downvoted to hell.
Edit 4 - So the two players responded to this post. Now we know Anet lied about how this campaign was done. There was no submission or entry, Anet approched them. Onto the next point, which seems to have been missed constantly. This was about "optics", meaning how the public might view this "friendship" in light of additional, easy to get information. The Twitch profile was edited recently, but previously it showed someone "not Poz" with a single donation of $9,000. Then it showed Poz as the biggest donator (exact words I don't remember). This led to the assumtion that Poz had to have donated more in total than the guy who gave a single donation of $9,000. The video and the amounts of donation previously listed publicly gave off a "not normal" vibe. It doesn't matter about asking someone the truth or not, it's how it looked. In marketing, this is a major part of how companies present themselves. In my reply to AnetHoGM, "AFLAC got rid of Gilbert Godfrey because he made a bad joke about the Japanese tsunami. Dell got rid of the "Dell dude" from their ad campaign because he was caught with weed. Subway got rid of Jared. Papa Johns ousted their CEO because he got too political with the NFL and the Kaepernick protests." Public perception isn't based solely on facts. It's based on face value. How will people in general see this ad campaign? How will gamers see it? How will GW2 players see it? How will the internet see it?
Edit 5 - Thank you Anet Lis for your response
Last Edit - Apologies to Bria and Poz. Yes assumptions were made, and I hope you can understand how. GW2 is a good game, and Anet is a decent company. Their marketing could be a bit better, IMO, and I think with Anet Lis's response, perhaps this will be a good lesson. Side note and completely separate from this discussion, I'm a recovering drug addict, so feel free to attack me or send me personal messages of hate. It's only fair to share a negative part of my private life when I assumed on others.
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