http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/blog.php?11037-Dr_Cuboid Wrestling News and Discussion - eWrestlingNews.com Community en Mon, 20 May 2013 16:21:24 GMT vBulletin 10 http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/blog.php?11037-Dr_Cuboid http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/entry.php?41521-PART-1-“The-WWE-Wrestling-Mark-Consumer-Lifecycle” Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:18:43 GMT Attachment 2236 (http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/attachment.php?attachmentid=2236) Greetings, fellow wrestling (s)mark. My name is Dr_Cuboid...

Greetings, fellow wrestling (s)mark. My name is Dr_Cuboid (well not really) and this is my first blog on this site. Like many of you, I’ve been a fan of pro wrestling my entire life. The image that you see above is something I created out of sheer boredom at work.

A bit of background on myself (I’m going somewhere with this, its not filler),

• I just turned 26 years old last week
• I’ve been a fan since I was about 8 years old (around 1994);
• I work full time;
• I watch MMA religiously and train in Brazilian JiuJitsu;
• I broke up with my longtime girlfriend about 2 years ago and haven’t had a proper relationship since
• I still hang out with my buddies from university and we often bitch about wrestling.

Why is this important and why should you care?

Well, first off, by introducing myself, I have allowed you to do the following:

• Identify which demographic, I fall into i.e. 18-35 Male, long-term wrestling fan
• Identifiy psychographic consumer data such as my other interests and personal situation.

Wresting is a business first and foremost. Any business-owner will tell you that the first step to marketing your business is ALWAYS to identify your target market. Vincent Kennedy McMahon, MBA (Harvard), understands this concept extremely well.

Ask yourself a question, “am I the target audience for Raw and Smackdown? If not, who is?”

Secondly, I come from a Marketing background, so If you will do me the honour of reading all the way through this blog I will introduce you to a concept that some of you may already be familiar with, but others will find completely novel. I call this concept, “The WWE Wrestling-Mark Consumer Lifecycle”.

This concept will help you understand why wrestling is in the state that its currently in and will help you to predict future trends. If that’s something you may be interested to understand, then READ ON!

Now I warn you, this blog is intentionally long (2 Parts) because I want to emphasise certain points. If my writing style annoys you, thank you for reading this far, please feel free to stop reading now.

The graph explains the jist of it anyway.

If you do decide you still want to read on, please do me the simple courtesy of reading through to the end before commenting (It’ll be fun… as Jake the Snake once said, “Trust Me”).

I must mention that I am focusing this blog purely on the E. TNA, Japan and other promotions are out of scope for this article.

Ok now that’s out of the way lets begin.


PHASE 1 Get Little Jimmy (6-12 year olds)


The WWE, as many of you know – or SHOULD know – is by default targeted towards children.

Think about that for a second.

Why children?

When I was a kid, wrestling was the coolest thing ever (and this was at a time when the industry was financially in the toilet). My friends and I idolized Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.

I’m sure that many of you who grew up in the 80s felt similarly about Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage. They weren’t around when I first started watching (WCW doesn’t count because they didn’t show it where I lived until 1996). So by default Bret Hart was the greatest wrestler ever to me and could take Hulk Hogan any day (I still feel that way today).

What about the kids today, who were either too young to enjoy Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in full pomp during the Attitude era? They need someone to look up to as well right? Enter the man the IWC loves to hate, John Cena.

Like it or not, John Cena is this generation’s Hulk Hogan. Believe me, it pains me to write this and I know I’m not the first person to say it. The 80s had Hogan, the 90s had Bret, the 00s had Cena.

For the sake of this article I shall refer to this original 6-12 year old consumer targeted by the WWE as “Little Jimmy”.

You need a squeaky clean babyface for Little Jimmy to look up to and want to be like when they grow. Remember, the vast majority of children don’t understand ‘kayfabe’. Its still REAL to them dammit! This is reflected in their consumer behavior, they’ll buy ANYTHING with their heroes on them: lunch boxes, action figures, t-shirts, you name it… It’s a gold mine that the WWE simply MUST utilize if it is to stay financially solvent.

If you didn’t start watching wrestling as a 6-12 year old, ask yourself “What else did I like when I was a kid”. Transformers? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Pokemon? Naruto? Ben 10? Think of how much merchandise you or your friends bought as kids and you’ll understand that for WWE to target Little Jimmy is simply “good business”. This, as almost everyone knows, is the business reasoning for the PG era.

PHASE 2 : ‘Medium Jimmy’ - Keep the Pre-Teens interested

Now having an established “Face of the Company” perform regularly in the main event for several years establishes the WWE brand in the consumer’s mind.

The goodwill carried over from years of epic moments watching Hulk Hogan or Bret Hart (or John Cena * sigh*) , carries a lot of weight with Little Jimmy. Even though life’s starting to get a bit harder and things aren’t as simple and easy as just a few years ago.

During this time for whatever reason, the do-no-wrong babyface’s popularity plateaus and eventually begins to decline. Does this sound familiar?

For Hogan this happened around the early 90s in the WWF (extended through his WCW run prior to the NWO). For Bret this started happening in 1996 when Vince wanted a younger, Shawn Michaels to be the new face of the company. Despite declining popularity, the top babyface usually still remains on top, but an urgent requirement for new stars to have their time in the sun emerges.

Bearing in mind that a new “Face of the Company” needs to be built in order to attract new 6-12 year olds, the company’s target market is STILL Little Jimmy. Little Jimmy’s going through some changes and doesn’t enjoy the same stuff he used to.

I believe that we are currently entering this Phase of the lifecycle.



This period of the lifecycle is usually when storylines start to get slightly edgier, babyfaces start acting a little bit like heels (and tweeners like Austin emerging) to reflect the growing frustration in Little Jimmy’s Life. We also start seeing more violent matches, with (dare I say it)… blood! Poor Little Jimmy may not have been able to handle that a few years ago.

What do you guys think?

With the current storyline of John Laurinitis trying to remove Cena as the face of the company and Cena jobbing to The Rock, Tensai and possibly Brock are we really witnessing the beginning of a new Phase?

The early signs may be there, Cena bloodied on Raw, Brock Lesnar returning, CM Punk taking up the main face role on Raw...

Thank you for reading so far and check out PART 2! Look forward to reading your comments!

Dr_Cuboid ]]> Dr_Cuboid http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/entry.php?41521-PART-1-“The-WWE-Wrestling-Mark-Consumer-Lifecycle” http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/entry.php?41522-PART-2-“The-WWE-Wrestling-Mark-Consumer-Lifecycle” Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:15:00 GMT Hi guys, Dr_Cuboid here to bring you Part 2 of “The WWE Wrestling-Mark Consumer Lifecycle”. Thank you for clicking on my post, but If you haven't already read Part 1, please go back and check it out first as it is a single blog.

So lets start where we left off. I believe we are currently entering Phase 2 of the lifecycle, which I have termed the 'Middle Jimmy' Phase.



Again, this period is characterised by slightly edgier storylines, more tweeners gaining popularity and more violence in matches. This is done in order to reflect the changes occurring in Little Jimmy's personal life.

The emergence of a character like Goldust in 1996 may correspond to this era which if we look back in time, was really a turning point in the direction of the WWF, transitioning slowly from the 'New Generation' to the era of 'Attitude'.

PHASE 3 Big Jimmy (18-35 year olds)

Little Jimmy’s a teenager now. What a crazy time. He doesn’t feel like ‘Little’ Jimmy anymore but he’s still got a long way to becoming ‘Big Jimmy’.

Wrestling is no longer what it once was and no longer holds the same impact as it used to. Things need to change or else Jimmy’s going to find something else to watch.

Marketing 101 Case Study : Years ago, Nokia tried marketing a range of cell phones specifically to teenagers. It was a tremendous flop. Why? Because teenagers don’t like stuff that make them feel like they’re still just kids - they like stuff that makes them feel older, cooler. They’d buy the cell phones marketed to adults. Vince McMahon, MBA (Harvard) understands this concept very well.

It is during this phase that we see a full tilt shift in business operations and the target market OFFICIALLY switches to the 18-35 demographic.

Little Jimmy is intrigued. Wrestling suddenly got cool again. Friends who stopped watching are watching again (as teenagers). Not only that but Little Jimmy’s older brother in college actually thinks its pretty cool too.

Thus, we get the attitude era. ECW was really a case of right place right time. They targeted the frustrated and disillusioned 18-35 year old WWF castoff fans and gave them exactly what they wanted. It worked perfectly. Vince McMahon, MBA (Harvard) understood this very well, resulting in the Attitude Era.

PHASE 4: ‘Old Jimmy’ - Milk the Big Jimmy cash cow as long a you can

By this Phase the product will have been targeted towards 18-35 year olds for a number of years already. New stars will have emerged, rotating “Face of the company” superstars will have had their moment to shine and the company will have gone through several periods of growth and decline.

Little Jimmy is now officially ‘Big Jimmy’ by this stage. Big Jimmy’s friends who briefly got back into wrestling during its re-emergence in popularity start to drop off and wrestling is no longer as cool anymore.

The company is still targeting 18-35 year olds though and storylines and matches are still fairly edgy to appeal to the target demographic.

New 6-12 year old or pre-teen fans will always be attracted to the product and consume the merchandise line to keep the E afloat. But they are still not the target audience.

The 2002-2006 Ruthless Aggression era I believe corresponds to this Phase.


PHASE 5: Back to Little Jimmy

Vince McMahon, MBA (Harvard) realises that the 18-35 year olds aren’t consuming enough merchandise and this is clearly evident to shareholders via the company’s financial reports.

He realises that it is time to go back to basics and start to target new 6-12 year olds. Will they be as loyal as Big Jimmy? Who knows, but Vince McMahon, MBA (Harvard) realises that as long as they’re buying t-shirts and action figures like crazy his company will be safe. At least he hopes that will be the case, but it’s the safest option in this economic environment.

As time passes, more and more Little Jimmy’s emerge that really connect with the product and it is these “Little Jimmies” that form the core audience of the WWE’s marketing campaigns.

Marketing 101: It is much easier to market to your existing customers than it is to attract new ones.

Vince McMahon, MBA (Harvard) understands this very well so as these Little Jimmy’s grow up, the product adjusts to reflect their lives.

And what about our original “Little Jimmy”, Big Jimmy? He either stops watching wrestling altogether, or watches with disdain, hoping patiently (or not so patiently in the IWC) that the product will change so he can recapture the magic he felt when he first became a fan.

Maybe if he sticks around long enough he’ll witness a brand new cycle. Its hard to say because the WWE has only been around long enough to complete 1 full cycle.



So what do you guys think?

Does wrestling (at least the WWE) follow such a predictable trajectory?

Does my theory only apply to ‘sports entertainment’ or does ‘rasslin’ follow a similar model?

Will wrestling’s next boom phase be similar to the Attitude Era or the Rock N’ Wrestling Era or something completely different?

Thank you for reading (or more likely skimming through) this really long blog. (padded out further with images).

I hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to hearing your comments.

All the best,

Dr_Cuboid ]]> Dr_Cuboid http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/community/entry.php?41522-PART-2-“The-WWE-Wrestling-Mark-Consumer-Lifecycle”