Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

MARKETING:

Newest Taser wants to be your Web friend

Company gives weapon a personality, accounts on Facebook, Twitter to attract young customers

After a week of endurance tests and press briefings, the Taser X3 decided to spend the Fourth of July in Mexico.

The stun gun announced the decision to friends on Facebook with a blurb and photo: the black Taser X3 trademark superimposed on a beach chair — a logo, lounging.

“I needed some R&R so headed to Cancun,” the accompanying caption read. “Here’s a picture of me relaxing on the beach. Other devices might fail if exposed to the blazing sun & salt water. Not me! My environmentally hardened chassis withstands dust, water, humidity, salt, swine flu & more ...”

The Taser X3 was equally breezy in a Twitter update that day: “I think I’ll celebrate the 4th out at the pool. Take a little dip.”

This Taser is not just another weapon catching up with friends on social networking sites, however. The new X3 model is to be officially unveiled to the world in one week. The chummy electronic control device is a mixed marketing and public relations stunt.

Tweet: “Never thought I’d get so excited about the feel of a safety switch. But wait until you feel it — smooooooth.”

The anthropomorphized Taser hawking itself is obviously an edgy idea. This is a controversial weapon we’re talking about — and now with, as well.

Taser spokesman Steve Tuttle says putting the X3 online, not just as an object but as a kind of chatty male personality, is an attempt to capture young adults in their element and language, which Taser has tried to ape with a wink-wink humor that’s half sales, half satire.

Facebook vacation update: “That song ‘Tequila Sunrise’ comes to mind as I sit on the lanai here in Cancun watching the day break in unbelievably vivid color. It’s almost as stunning (pun intended) as my new color Graphical User Interface ...”

Marketing campaigns on the Internet can explode exponentially. But so can negative press. Dan Zarella, a Boston-based social media consultant, has seen Taser skewered on the Internet, an easy feat when there’s an incendiary article or, say, viral video.

Footage of a University of Florida student being Tasered by campus police has been watched a few million times on YouTube — replayed and recounted so many times that “Don’t Tase me, bro” is an exhausted joke.

For Taser to put its controversial product on Facebook and humanize it, Zarella says, is an apt counter-strike, one that’s “a little like breaking the fourth wall and winking at everybody.”

“There’s some risk involved,” he says, “that somebody is going to take them to task for making light of such a serious thing, but no good social media is without risk.”

Of course, Taser’s first goal is to sell a new product, one that’s available only to law enforcement. The problem is that the first police officials to buy Taser products in the mid-’90s, when they first became available, are increasingly outnumbered by younger recruits. Newspaper articles, even direct e-mail and sleek company Web sites, are not going to intrigue officers fresh out of high school or their friends, Tuttle says.

“We want to get that generation. This keeps Taser from being a dinosaur.”

Since the Taser X3 started Twittering on July 30, it has gained just shy of 150 followers — not a great success. Since the stun gun’s Facebook page was launched, only one day earlier, it has gained more than 1,000 fans — people reading online updates designed to secretly inform.

When the X3 says it’s going for a swim, Tuttle says, it’s really to emphasize the device is safe near water.

When the Taser X3 says “I’m petitioning for Mensa membership — I only transfer enough energy needed to disable the suspect. Smart indeed,” it’s an attempt to convey the device’s advanced technology, the specific details of which are being largely withheld before the official launch.

“This gives (the X3) a personality. Gives it some pizazz and puts some edge on it,” Tuttle says. “And here’s the nice thing — it harms nobody.”

The chatty gun is harmless online, though people will inevitably question the safety of the X3 as they have other Taser models, which, put simply, use an electric current to inhibit muscle control.

The company has been sued numerous times by the families of people who died after being Tasered, which has provoked an ongoing debate over the device’s danger. Taser says its technology isn’t lethal, while groups like Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union insist it can be. This is a complicated issue, one that can’t easily be summed up on Twitter or Facebook, where, even if critics had spoken out against the device, the X3 has been too busy marketing itself to defend itself.

After posting a Facebook blurb on its own flashlight system, which automatically adjusts depending on the outside conditions, the X3 wrote, “That, my friends, is what we call mood lighting ...”

The X3’s friends quickly wrote back, including one fan who simply posted “SWEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!”

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy