Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band

As I walked through Best Buy to purchase my copy of Pineapple Express (that’s my product placement of the day), I came across a display that made me stop before I got into the line to pay. I’m not sure if I would have stopped if it wasn’t for the purpose of this exercise, but because of it I found something interesting. I’m having trouble trying to pinpoint exactly what the display was for because it did not showcase a product. It showcased two. The products were Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It was clearly not advocating one or the other and I wasn’t too sure if Best Buy did that intentionally or it just seemed convenient to promote the category altogether.

This led me to realize the true nature of Best Buy as a company and why so many people prefer it. Best Buy is quite literally there to provide the best buy for your buck. They don’t take sides and their employees don’t have an agenda, which makes consumers feel pretty good. Consumers can ask an employee for an opinion and expect to get a pretty honest answer. That’s really what people that shop at Best Buy want: objectivity.

The Guitar Hero/ Rock Band display is a pretty accurate manifestation of Best Buy’s objectivity. Which game is better? They’ll let you decide. Try them both and make a choice, because choice is essentially what makes us human.

This is where our specialty comes in. In the event that two competitive products are placed next to each other in a retail setting, advertising should be one of the deciding factors in a consumer’s preference. To be honest, I think the advertising on both sides has been short of spectacular, which leaves content as the last remaining factor in our decision.
It used to be that Guitar Hero was pure guitar work and Rock Band came in with a more inclusive product in which you could play the guitar as well as the drums and sing. That distinction was eradicated when Guitar Hero launched World Tour and added drums and a microphone to their entourage. Now we have two identical products that are only separated by their set list, and isn’t that a whole can of worms?

People like different types of music, so if the music on the game is the only thing determining whether I’ll buy Guitar Hero or Rock Band, then I think that’s a pretty big problem. What did I get from the packaging? The fact that I realized I liked songs on both games? How can I push one game over the other if there’s no unique selling proposition? Pepsi and Coke are practically identical but at least they taste different. For some reason, after I played both Guitar Hero and Rock Band at Best Buy, I had the same taste in my mouth.

These products need a makeover because they are too similar. Maybe if I were allowed to pick what songs I wanted on my game from a list of them, then I would get exactly what I paid for. Consumers are getting used to choice. They can customize their Facebook pages and iPhone apps however they like. Someone do something about these video game Nazis telling us what songs to play in “our band.” Ultimately, I couldn’t decide, so you’ll see both Guitar Hero and Rock Band at my house, which doesn’t say much about brand equity.