Come on down!

The third week in July was a busy one for the folks over at The Price Is Right. Aside from the regular greasing of the big wheel, stocking up on tubes of Ben-Gay, covering everything in velvet and gold to retain the look and feel of the 70’s, and making sure there’s plenty of green glitter around the 5 and 15, PIR producers had their hands quite full. Having recently switched hosts, from the immortal (literally) Bob Barker to Drew Carey, maintaining the brand identity of the show is more important than ever. Let’s face it, Carey has some big shoes and a skinny little microphone to fill. Lots of fans are having a hard time adjusting to the new look and host. So, PIR producers are really pushing the brand, hard. For the first time in quite a while, PIR is shooting commercials and exploring other avenues to increase brand loyalty.

One of the most inventive, and long overdue, steps that the producers have taken is to finally make a Price Is Right video game. Immortalizing the game and brand in video game form should help attract new viewers, aside from the typical draw (which consists of folks in the 60-85 age range, kids faking sickness to stay home from school and poor college students). In anticipation of the upcoming video game release, the powers that be decided to shoot a commercial.

So, if you’re promoting The Price Is Right, what are you going to put on your commercial? Only the greatest, most respected and most popular game on the show…PLINKO. You know the game. It’s the one where the contestant drops chips into a series of pegs, until it ultimately lands in a slot denoting the monetary amount of their prize. For the commercial, the producers rigged the game so that every chip would fall into the highly coveted $10K slot. Shooting went off without a hitch.

 Much like the Higlander, there can be only one Plinko. So, the commercial used the actual set from the show…problem is, whoever the genius is that rigged the game for the commercial forgot to fix it before filming the next episode of the show. When a contestant climbed the curvy staircase and began dropping chips, low and behold, she hit the $10K slot three times in a row. The producers quickly discovered their mistake ad abruptly stopped filming. They explained the situation to the contestant and in an attempt to lowball the contestant (without going over, of course) they tried appeasing her with a $3,000 buy off. Well, PIR is filmed in front of a large studio audience and this didn’t go over well with the crowd. Ultimately, the producers ended up folding. They let the contestant keep the $3,000 buy off AND gave her the $30K she had won. If they had learned anything at all from their own model, they should have started by offering her $1 and seeing where it leads. This sort of thing would have never happened under Bob Barker’s watch, I tell you what.

Losing $33K on a single game of Plinko stings, undoubtedly. However, The Price Is Right has an image to uphold and branding to maintain. In the same way that they are experiencing a hard time from shifting hosts, not allowing the contestant to take home the $30K can potentially alienate fans who have come to expect a certain way of doing things. What it came down to was deciding whether its worse to lose $30,000 or lose much needed fans once word of the mistake got out. The producers made the right call.

Once a brand has an established identity, it’s all about maintenance. Who wants to live in a world where it isn’t possible to hit the $10,000 slot three times in a row? Not me. Why do you think they play the same music, same games, use the same sets and (from the looks of it) give away the same prizes that they have been using for the past 40 years? It’s all about branding, folks. Sometimes change is only good if you’re buying a Slurpee.

“and the actual price of your showcase is…”

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