Herald - Fiction from Adam Nathaniel Davis

Herald

We don't have a marketing budget. We just sit back and allow Hegemony's heralds to drive our customers to us.
Jeremy Castro, CEO of New World Biotech
H
eralds are the corporate marketers for  Hegemony International. Although there are some locations that feature standalone teams of heralds, they are also embedded directly within numerous operating groups throughout Hegemony's organizational structure.

Perception

History

H
eralds are infamous for their long history of blunt and somewhat hamfisted marketing campaigns. While there are probably many heralds that would prefer a more nuanced strategy, corporate direction tends to favor an extremely... direct approach. For many years, the primary marketing slogan featured across many different advertising campaigns was: "Buy It." When executive management decided that this slogan was no longer gaining proper traction, the slogan was updated to: "Buy It. Now."

Below the Belt
Herald campaigns are also legendary for taking direct aim at competitors. Most ads spend precious little time highlighting the value of Hegemony products, and copious time telling the consumer why the competitors' products suck. One particularly nasty campaign aimed at Hegemony's corporate nemesis, CRE, used mugshots scrolling across the screen with descriptions of the perpetrators' crimes. The mugshots were of any CRE employee who's ever gone on to be convicted of a crime - regardless of whether those crimes occurred during their employment with CRE, and regardless of whether those crimes had anything to do with their CRE duties.

Tone Deaf
They also have an established reputation of tone-deaf messaging. In a recent campaign to market Hegemony's home security solutions, the ads gleefully announced that: "We're Watching You." In another ad designed to highlight Hegemony's global leadership, excerpts were shown from a rousing speech made by Reginald Howell in which he stoically raised a flat-palmed salute to the audience and referred to his corporate headquarters as "the motherland". In yet another campaign designed to highlight Hegemony's advancements in human cloning, a young girl is shown being brutally run over by a bus. As her parents wail in agony over her mangled body, the tagline on the screen announces that, "Only Hegemony can bring her back now."

Alternative Names
Marketer
Type
Public Services


Cover image: Hegemony International - Jacksonville by Adam Nathaniel Davis

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