Lynx Got Game

Over the holidays I read this book called The Game by Neil Strauss. I'd heard a lot about it but avoided it because of the inherent lameness of reading a book about how to pick up women, which is what it is.

Sort of.

Strauss relates the extraordinary story of how he entered the shady subculture of the pickup artist [PUA] - a bunch of [usually] self acknowledged geeks who had conquered their fears of talking to girls by learning routines by rote and then honed those patterns, sharing knowledge about which psychological plays were most effective, until they felt able to walk into any nightclub and go home accompanied.

Strauss transforms himself into Style and ends up living with Courtney Love, sleeping with innumerable women on the way to..well.. I won't ruin it for you.

It's a remarkably entertaining book, full of truly larger than life characters and exploits and it is a TRUE STORY, as he's keen to stress.

It was perhaps inevitable that Lynx would eventually take on the challenge of spreading The Game to the sweaty teenage masses. The new website is rich and deep, full of routines and tips and challenges to help hone your game, content and widgets and mobile apps and so on - as we've come to expect from BBH's Lynx campaigns.

The Game relies on props, routines, gimmicks, to disarm women's natural skepticism of random men that approach them. The site has similar tricks and routines to learn and then try for yourself - the results can be shared with this burgeoning PUA community.

Ultimately, these mechanics give shy wannabe players the confidence to approach women, which is also the product truth underlying the Lynx Effect.

Get in there.

Comments

[Style-ish]

Neill Strauss is doing a book signing and speech at Waterstones (Picadilly) tonight.

[David]

If the whole idea of brands offering useful stuff to add to the product experience is right then Lynx has found its calling by helping men get some. I actually think they should keep the lads, lad humour and all the rest but actually treat the whole subject of the education of man a bit seriously. Anyone wearing 'Java' needs all the help he can get.

[Fredrik Bang]

i think it looks like bbh have suddenly read 'the game', stolen the bits that fitted the strategy the most and given up on coming up with anything vaguely interesting themselves. disappointing.

[Robin Grant]

Faris - do you rate this? Honestly?

Whatever:
http://www.brandrepublic.com/blogs/showpost/41e13f91-11c2-4911-bedc-d84a7de4a1cc/

[Karl Turley]

I believe that the underlying idea actually has some substance and fit's really well with the Lynx brand values,even if it is stolen from 'the game' and no matter if you agree with them or not. Some of the features are quiet nice, but there is something I find just a little fussy about the execution.

[Faris]

easy now!

whilst i do find the similarities to the game remarkable - as I remarked - but then genius steals and so on - I actually think the execution of the idea is rather thorough.

There is an element of box ticking about it - but that's not a bad place to start.

Rock. On.

[Andy]

The basic approach is a great idea. I think the execution is awful. It's messy, but most importantly it isn't useful or interesting. The appeal of The Game is clear - it empowers the reader (however ugly that is).

Chatting up tricks - or "adult grooming" as it was referred to after Strauss' book is a tricky area. Clearly interesting, but gets a bit dark and scary. I think Lynx are right not to take it too far (legal team breathes sigh of relief) but they've gone too far the other way and it's just silly, cheap content. Shame.

And another mistake is that the advice on clothing and venues etc doesn't come from anyone credible. The Game is interesting because this guy knows his shit. WHO says I should buy these shoes - Lynx? Get a bloody respected style journalist/guru on it.

i find this rubbish and nasty.

i liked the magic of the lynx brand. they made this smell that somehow made you god's gift. nice - and a laugh.

this is just a set of tricks to get a woman's number. and executed from the lynx brand which tries to make them cool is painful.

these kind of tricks should stay in a geek's long book. or on some low key website. they don't feel good coming from a big deo brand.

[Faris]

Whilst there is indeed a level of darkness in the psychological engineering of pickups - and the book I think shows this pretty clearly in how it ultimately distorts the the pick up dudes themselves - I don't really see how this is any different to anything else Lynx has done before - except that rather than dramatising the lynx effect that are "teaching" people how to do it.

The reason that the culture of The Game exists, the reason that the Lynx work has been successful, is because, in the heads of teenage boys, girls are both scary and desirable.

Not that I'd recommend actually doing any of these things - I'd consider this entertainment over utility...but then I wouldn't do magic tricks to impress girls in clubs either. But, if you believe Strauss, it seems to work...

Anyway - if I was BBH - to steal from Crispin - I'd be thinking "I don't care what people are saying as long as they are saying something..."

[Charles Frith]

I think the best put down I received recently was from a woman in a Beijing bar who I introduced myself to. She replied laconically with three words... "learn Chinese first".

My Brazilian chum said this was the coolest put down he'd heard from a Chinese woman. I'm not bitter ;)

[Posted by 124.205.26.34 via http://webwarper.net This is added while posting a message to avoid misuse.
Try: http://webwarper.net/webwarper.exe Example of viewing: http://www.webwarper.net/ww/http://www.webwarper.net/ ]

[niko]

here is a nice link to brandautopsy about pick up artists and marketing..

http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/2007/10/skyon-a-master-.html

[keatso]

hmm..does this mean you havent seen the VH1 reality show about "Mystery"? I dont know if they aired it across the pond...

Interestingly, I was at a wedding recently when I got "cock-blocked" by some prick from BBH.

Thinkning back, maybe he was working on this brief.

Doesn't stop him being a prick though.

[Mat Morrison]

http://www.myspace.com/neilstrauss

Mate -- it's a direct lift. Your post prompted me to do a little googling and - sure enough - there's Neil Strauss and friends demonstrating pick up moves, and challenging the MySpace audience to video themselves doing the same thing.

(caveat: if the author of "The Game" and MySpace are, in fact, (presciently) copying BBH's original idea, then please disregard previous statement.)

[Faris]

hmmm - that Strauss myspace page is very similar indeed...

I find the whole thing a bit depressing. The book was great. But the reality of it seems, well, a bit unpleasant really.

Perhaps I'm just a romantic at heart. Or, at the very least, not a misogynist.

[Be Irresistable]

Learn the art of being so good..women pick you up!! It's all true.