What does AAA mean to you?

In various entertainment and media segments, the phrase “triple-A release” gets thrown out a fair amount. These are the rare releases that make their publishing companies oodles of cash, generate sequel after sequel, and get the fast-food and CPG companies falling over each other attempting to feature characters on their happy meals and cereal boxes. I developed an acronym related to AAA for launching video games but it occurred to me that it translates to any medium:

For a release to be AAA it should have the following:

Accessibility — Elements that make the masses (not the hard core faithful) feel comfortable during the first few levels, scenes, chapters. A metaphoric wide-open doorway so we don’t feel scared and turn the other way. Watch old episodes of the show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Notice something about the first few questions? Brain dead simple. In other words, a wide open door to hook the masses in.

Addictability — Hmm, not sure that’s a word. Remember when we played Space Invaders or Centipede as a kid. A quarter got you in but man did those games suck more than one quarter from me each time. They were addictive. Each level hooked us further and further. Each time someone beat our high score, we had to go back in. The best TV shows, movies, books, and games all have it. They’re like Crack. We can’t give them up till the end.

Amplifiability — Okay, I KNOW that’s not a word. But to be a AAA success you need news of how good your product is to spread like wildfire. An old commercial in the 70s/80s (Wella Balsam shampoo I think) featured a woman’s image being multiplied on screen while she said, “…and they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on …” Today this is called viral marketing and marketing execs work themselves into a tizzy trying to leverage it. The good news is, if you have the first two, this part is the easiest. But you do need to plan for it ahead of time, and build it into your product or service, if possible.

Build a product that’s accessible to all, make sure it has addictive elements, and then amplify it through marketing. And you have your AAA release! Pretty simple right? Heh, heh ….