Oscar Friedmann

ADVT71-102 Advertising Masterclass

Sven Brodmerkel

Final Project: Informative/Opinion Piece

Advertising Over Quality; How Razer became the king of gaming peripherals
despite a lower product standard.

08/15/2022
 In the gaming peripheral market, Razer stands king, being known as the most
recognizable and oldest brand within the sphere. Razer was the first to tap into this market,
creating the first gamer targeted mouse, and tapping into every other aspect in modern times
(computers, headphones, keyboards, etc.). However, despite its reputation, their products
have been shown to have a lower quality than its competitors, while still charging abnormal
amounts of money. Some have even gone as far as calling Razer a “marketing company that
happens to make technology” (ShortCircuit, 2022). For example; Razer’s Blade lineup of
gaming laptops have caused multiple issues, with LinusTechTips (a technology review
channel with 14.7 million subscribers on YouTube) having to return a third of all units
purchased (5/14 units), and the Verge stating that their unit came with an issue that caused
their screen to go black, with the only solution being to reset the laptop (Faulkner, 2021).
Razer has also indulged in false or misleading advertising for the Blade, claiming to sport a
lighter chassis, brighter keyboard, and improved thermals when compared to (implied) its
previous model, but when personally confronted by the reviewer, they admitted that the
chassis was not changed, the thermal change was just a software update, and the brighter
keyboard was meant to be compared to a laptop with no lighting at all (Linus Tech Tips,
2017). Even the headphones lineup is not safe, with a reviewer stating that the Barracuda
Pro’s audio quality “sounds really f**ing bad” (ShortCircuit, 2022), and another saying that
the Blackshark V2 Pro is; “bloated, harsh, shouty, sharp, and just worse in every single
audible way (when referring to audio quality)” (crinacle+, 2022). Despite all of these issues,
Razer grew 33.3% in 2021, to US$44.6 million net profit for that year (Razer Reports Full
Year 2021 Earnings – Razer Press, 2022). Why is it then that Razer can manage to have
such an exponential growth despite having horribly reviewed products and prices generally
considered to be high? The answer can be found in their way of advertising, prioritising it
over multiple other things as an effort to convince the customer that their products are worth
purchasing over the competition. If this is the case however, how does Razer maintain their
reputation through multiple years, even after the customers find out their products are not up
to par? After all, if an apple tastes bad, no one will buy it, regardless of how pretty it looks. In
this case, Razer can manage to avoid this flaw by virtue of the market space itself.
Technology is a confusing space for those that are uninformed, and Razer takes advantage
of this, targeting the casual consumers looking into gaming for the first time. The gaming
market is divided into multiple sub-spaces for each peripheral; the computer scene,
keyboard scene, and headphone scenes are good examples of this, as each specialise in
their own type of product. The people within these scenes know what it takes to be a good
product, but this knowledge often comes after a large amount of time has come into
researching this. Razer does not look into these people, but instead those that have only
scratched the surface of each scene, offering a compelling product on the surface, that
unless the customer researches into the scene, will seem like a satisfactory product even
through use. This is a perfect example of satisficing, that is, when a customer chooses to go
for the known and popular brand instead of something unknown, which in this case could
offer a better product. In all fairness, Razer is not the only brand showing this behaviour, with
other companies offering similar products often applying the same techniques, like Logitech
(Logitech G Australia - Shop Gaming Gear, n.d.) or Astro (Gaming Headsets, Controllers &
Accessories | ASTRO Gaming, n.d.). Nevertheless, more niche companies specialising in its
own product scene have received more favourable reviews, like Sennheiser for headphones
and speakers (Sennheiser — Headphones, Microphones, Wireless Systems, n.d.), or Asus
and its Zephyrus line for gaming laptops (Laptops For Gaming - All Series｜ASUS Australia,
n.d.). The difference however is that Razer specialises, or rather seems to specialise on all
products of the market, which overcomes the daunting and overwhelming of researching into
each individual space and making the correct choice. Razer is a perfect case study as to
how, sometimes, advertising can override product quality while still managing to attract new
customers and maintain the current ones.

A big part of Razer’s strategy involves improving everything about their public image
and polishing its brand name. According to Seth Godin, a brand is “a set of expectations,
memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision
to choose one product or service over another” (Godin, 2009). This is exactly what the Razer
brand means to a lot of people, as in the past they have made history innovating within the
field, connecting memories, and regardless of their product performance, their build quality is
exceptional, setting high expectations for the customers. This fits in quite nicely to what was
previously mentioned, as build quality, while not the most important aspect of a technological
peripheral, is definitely the most noticeable thing at first glance, causing the illusion of
general product quality and performance. Razer also uses a high price to set this idea into
their consumers, as normally speaking, price is related to better quality. A study found that
manufacturers tend to use high prices and advertisements to express a notion of high quality
products, when that might not always be the case, and that in fact, this has lead to larger
sales of said products, especially in areas that are not easily understandable to the general
populous (Thomas et al., 1998). Nevertheless, this type of price advertising can often
mislead the customers, as manufacturers use price not as an accurate measure of their
product’s quality, but as a way to over exaggerate it (Kotowitz & Mathewson, 1979). It is this
belief that high price equals quality, and the general high build standard that Razer keeps
that enforces the faith customers seem to have that Razer provides them with efficient
products. However, build quality would not be much without a pleasing colour scheme to go
along with it. For years now, Razer has established and doubled down on a very simple
colour scheme for their brand, dropping most colours on their products and usually not
deviating from a black vessel and a small green logo. This goes along with the chroma
feature; this is a system of RBG (meaning red blue and green which in combination can
create almost any colour) light on most of their products, often sporting a rainbow wave
effect (see Appendix 1). This is yet another aspect of visual confirmation of the products'
apparent high performance, which along with the build quality and price manage to convince
the consumer to purchase their products. As mentioned before, Razer offers a product for
each of the subsections of the gaming market (see Appendix 2), which are all combined with
the company’s proprietary software, Razer Synapse. This software acts as the hub for all
Razer products, generating an ecosystem for the user, where they can manage all their
products in one place, instead of multiple. This is a common tactic used by a lot of
companies to keep their consumers buying more products of the same brand under different
categories. Main offenders of this are Apple with their MacOS ecosystem (Erwinkarim, 2021)
and Google with Android (Erwinkarim, 2022). After all, why deviate from Razer when all the
other products work in the same place? It is not a secret that Razer was once one of the
leading gaming peripheral manufacturers in the world, shaking up the market by introducing
new products for what once was a niche market, offering what no other company had, and
building up a reputation for their company name (Haridas, 2016), but as the years went on,
they got comfortable in their position, and started releasing products not up to par with the
competition, with a name tax (rising the value of something just because of the company
releasing it), which unfortunately has been working thanks to the user’s satisficing. Razer
puts all its focus into improving anything that the customer can tangibly feel or see, that
being, the product’s aesthetics, build quality, and ease of use in software, to make all the
experience seamless, and hopefully distract or completely stop them from noticing the
significant lack of performance for the price and when compared to its competitors.

Advertising is one of Razer’s most crucial aspects, taking their visually pleasing
products and making sure their target audience sees them. Having spent USD$135.5 million
in 2020 for advertisement alone (Razer Selling and Marketing Spending 2016-2020, n.d.),
Razer is spending more money than ever in this sector, and with a gross profit margin
increase to 24% (Razer Reports Full Year 2021 Earnings – Razer Press, 2022), it is clear
that it is working. Razer targets young adults ranging from 14 to 25 year old (O’Neill, 2021),
those who are most likely to take interest in gaming. They do this via a sleek and vibrant
company design, having most of the areas black, with the important things standing out with
their chroma lighting effect (see Appendix 3). This is done to specifically capture the
attention of the younger generation, introducing them into what they perceive as “cool,”
which leads them into their product descriptions. When first going into their webpage, the
user is bombarded by a multitude of advertisements, showing the name of the product in big
bold letters, followed by a product specific slogan (with things like “Instant control. Infinite
Creativity” and “For the Pro”) and a buy button (see Appendix 4, 5, and 6). Razer abuses
their aesthetics and outstanding slogan creation to create an advertisement that does not
appeal to the decision making of a consumer that’s based on rational thought, but instead to
one that is lead by emotion (like system one and system two), further demonstrating that
there’s no need for them to create a product that performs well, just one that looks good
enough for the consumer, and then target their emotions. The page also shows any deals
happening during the season, in this case the back to school specials (see appendix 7 and
8), directly targeting students in highschool or below. With the cheapest laptop showcased
being AU$2,799, Razer is demonstrating that they want their products to be seen as a status
symbol in schools, and spreading the message that Razer is a brand to want, regardless of
age. Most of the webpage is filled with similar advertisements, showcasing different
products, putting an attractive slogan below, and a “Learn More”/”Buy Now” button. Once the
“Learn More” button is clicked, Razer presents the reader with a statement that seems like it
is informing about the quality of the product, but instead just presents the reader with
information that does not lead anywhere. For example, let's take the Razer Opus page; the
reader first sees the piece of information seen in Appendix 9. At first glance the sentences
seem quite important, informing the reader of the presence of active noise cancellation, but
upon further inspection, this is not actually that instructive. For starters, how good is the
active noise cancellation? This is quite a tricky part to get right in a headphone, at best, it
does its job correctly, isolating any noise from the outside, but at worst, it can not only fail,
but damage the user’s ears with incorrect audio waves. It is sure that a company like Razer
would not sell a product that does the latter, but it also demonstrates how unwilling they are
to mention the quality of this feature, or compare it to other similar products, following it up
unsteady by a statement that targets emotion. It is true that Razer is not the only company to
do this, as presenting the reader with technical information might overwhelm them and lead
them elsewhere, nevertheless, typically companies leave a detailed graph with all the
specifications, but Razer instead chose to share an incredibly undetailed list of features (see
appendix 10). However, to the regular consumer, these types of features can seem as an
indicator of product quality, and as Razer presents it to be as something complicated, might
lead the customer to a false sense of understanding, which in itself, more often than not,
leads to purchase. Lately, Razer has also been promoting an ecological campaign featuring
their company mascot, Snek, and an effort to save 10 million trees (see appendix 11). The
company has created a multitude of products featuring Snek made with eco-friendly
materials (see appendix 12). As of January 2022, Razer has saved over 900,000 trees
thanks to the sales of this campaign (Razer Reports Full Year 2021 Earnings – Razer Press,
2022). Research has shown that 64% of all consumers would base their purchase decisions
just on their social values (Edelman, 2018). Whether Razer is doing this because it might
attract new customers, or because saving trees is an important part of stopping climate
change (or both) is unclear, but it is giving them a more positive reception, as it might have
played a key role in their impressive growth during 2021. Razer is a company that in a
market oversaturated with constant innovation and product uncertainty in customers,
chooses to focus on advertisement and appealing into the user’s emotions with cleverly
crafted slogans and visuals. This is a model that has helped Razer succeed, and stay as one
of the top gaming peripheral companies.

From a business perspective, Razer’s model is quite unique and outstanding as it

permits them to not focus on innovation and only spend money on visuals and
advertisements. This is all thanks to Razer’s previous reputation which was built on the
opposite; innovation in a basically non-existent field for what once was a niche community.
Razer is the perfect example on not only how customers satisfice, but also how system 1
often takes over system two in purchase decisions. It is also the perfect example that
demonstrates how important a good brand name is in order to not only sell, but to put a price
tag on your company name and take a back seat on what formally was the “hard part of the
job.” Razer finds itself in a position of power within the market, being able to seamlessly
focus its target audience without the efforts other companies have to take, much like Apple
in the smartphone market, or Google in search engines (at a smaller scale of course). It is
truly amazing how a company can focus on advertising over product quality, and still remain
on top. Razer’s model offers a good case study on not only the market of gaming
peripherals, but also the psyche of its customers, and shows just how quality and innovation
do not always have to coincide. This essay might have seemed like a negative take on
Razer, but that is not its intention, instead, it tries to focus on the uniqueness of this case,
and how typically negative company behaviour can actually be ignored and not stop a
company from growing at exponential rates. It is primordial to understand that just because
something is seen as negative, does not mean it is, as in the business world, if something
sells, it works. Not many companies are in a similar position as Razer’s, having their brand
name mean that much that is, but it is incredibly important that Razer uses its influence to
spread socially positive messages, like the campaign they’re currently doing with Snek, not
because it might attract new customers (although that is surely to be an incentive), but
because it is the right thing to do, and with their size, they can make a big impact.
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Appendix:

Appendix 1: https://www.razer.com/au-en/chroma

Appendix 2: Laptops, Desktops and Components, Monitors, Mice, Mats, Keyboards,

Headsets, Speakers, Streaming, Productivity, Software.

Appendix 3:

Appendix 4:

Appendix 5:
Appendix 6:

Appendix 7:

Appendix 8:
Appendix 9:
Appendix 10:

Appendix 11:

Appendix 12: