Pepsi, Burger King And Social Media: Learning From Mistakes

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Both Pepsi and Burger King launched ambitious social media campaigns over the past year or so. Yet both of them have seen declines in their business of late. It might be tempting to bury your head in the sand over this, saying that social campaigns were worth it for engagement, response and (perhaps) ROI.

The answer to these claims is equally simple: If those ‘other’ things mattered more to business performance, they should have been the focus of marketing, not entertainment or whatever, wrote Jonathan Salem Baskin. And what good are invented metrics for social campaigns if they don’t evidence any influence on sales There’s no such thing as a successful brand that doesn’t deliver successful marketing, is there In fact, the latter builds the former. They can’t be disconnected, and if social marketing can’t be made responsible for tangible behaviors that matter to the business, not just to ideas about branding, then no made-up measures of its importance matter much at all.

It could be that social campaigns for Old Spice and the Ford Fiesta simply pushed consumers towards a good product, making them more tangibly important to the brand and the consumer. CMOs need to discover new ways to do the old things that still matter: Offer products and services that someone truly needs, admitting that you want to sell stuff to them, and then properly serving them after they’ve given you their business, says Baskin. Sounds so easy as I type it but doing so has gotten so incomprehensibly complicated. Maybe the news coming out of Pepsi and Burger King is a wakeup call that we need to make all of this simpler, not harder. I think it starts with quitting the glib new rationales for avoiding these traditional and difficult challenges. May silly social media R.I.P., and may smart social live to serve businesses better in the future.

Source: Ad Age

Adaptive Advertising — Sci-Fi Future Coming Soon?

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Minority Report was one of the most compelling near future science fiction films in recent memory, and its dynamic of personalized ads resonated with many people long after seeing the film. That sort of personalized ad technology could be coming soon, being able to serve ads based around the viewers general demographic and perhaps being powered by social networks.

“Steven Spielberg got it wrong,” says Daniel Steinbichler, 3MGTG’s chief executive. “It will be more advanced than the director ever imagined. Instead of just recognizing consumers by name, technology such as gladvertising will allow brands to offer interactive experiences.”

The presence of the ads is worrying to privacy experts. Many are wondering whom will be collecting this personal data and how it will be collected. “We feel that it is an industry that has so far gone unchallenged and because of this they are developing some scary stuff,” Alexander Hanff from Privacy International. “We have a situation where the boundaries between our online and offline worlds become even more blurred and we currently have no regulatory or legislative regime in place to deal with these dangers.”

There’s been some talk of offering a service for the information, like what some public WiFi spots do. Others consider it to be a generational thing. “It’s about the younger generations that are going to be the early adopters and the leaders and the educators and the influencers, said Dr. Frank Shaw, who wrote the report. “I think the power of what we’re talking about is that the consumer is going to want to participate. If you see those guys in Times Square, playing on the digital boards – that’s exciting! That’s what they want to do.”

“Naturally there are going to be anxieties and concerns about intrusive behavior, about security issues and so on,” added Shaw. “I think, though, that over time the consumer in their experience of the technology is going to become increasingly more comfortable. Don’t forget, we have this wonderful invention called the off button!”

Source: BBC

Angry Birds Seen As Mario Of Mobile Gaming

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Angry Birds Rio has launched and it has quickly climbed to the top of the mobile app charts. Working with 20th Century Fox to promote the game concurrently with the film Rio has been a success, showing that blockbuster games can come out of the App Store.

“The quick ascension of Angry Birds Rio shows that mobile devices are just as capable of building strong brands and franchises as consoles. Just as Mario or Master Chief are considered companions to their respective consoles, Angry Birds is quickly becoming the mascot of mobile devices, said Sourcebits’ Brad Hilderbrand. “Halo revolutionized console-based multiplayer when it launched, and from that point Bungie just continued to tweak the formula. Angry Birds gave rise to the physics-based puzzle game on mobile platforms, and now the developers are simply perfecting the genre they helped define.”

“The popular belief is that you’ll have a much higher possibility of success on consoles, but I can’t think of any console games reaching the massive amount of popular culture exposure that iOS games, such as Angry Birds, achieved on mobile devices. In this case, Rovio opened a completely new door for the entire games industry, agrees Piotr Babieno, from iFun4all. A few years ago, the thing you would talk to your friends about was the latest episode of a popular TV show. Now, people are talking to their friends about what high scores they were able to get. From a marketing perspective, this IP is no longer just a game. It is a part of the collective consciousness.”

Source: Modojo

Madden NFL 12 Cover Athlete Search

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While the NFL might be in the middle of a lockout right now, EA continues to work on Madden NFL 12. Right now, they are launching a bracket-style voting campaign to determine the next cover athlete for Madden.

From now until April 27, there will be a contest to choose the next Madden cover athlete from 32 candidates, or one from every NFL team. The winner will be revealed on ESPN’s SportsNation on April 27.

Fans can check out ESPN.com/MaddenVote to vote for their favorite athletes. SportsNation will announce the latest results every Monday during the campaign at 4 PM. Those interested can also fill out a Madden NFL 12 cover athlete bracket at facebook.com/EASPORTSMaddenNFL to compete again their friends and win prizes like copies of Madden NFL 12 and Super Bowl tickets.

Free Games The Future, $60 Games Exploitative Says Ben Cousins

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Ben Cousins, general manager of EA’s Easy Studios, believes that future games will be platform agnostic and be based around free games with deep multiplayer experiences. He also has some very strong opinions about the traditional retail game market.

I can t think of anything more exploitative than gating all of your content behind having to pay someone $60, said Cousins. That s a really harsh business model if you think about it objectively. What we do is enable everyone to play the game, and figure out if they like it. If they don t like it they can walk away and they don t lose anything.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun

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Dead Space Film Still In Production

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D.J. Caruso agreed to direct a Dead Space film in 2009, though little has come out about it since then. During an interview during the German press tour for I Am Number Four, he confirmed that work is still ongoing for a Dead Space film.

“We’re working on the story,” said Caruso in a video interview. “We had one attempt of trying to do a prequel, but the story didn’t quite work out as well as we wanted it to. But if we can capture how — I don’t want to say, I guess, how scary or horrifying it would be to play that game because it’s really, really fantastic. It’d be fun to make that into a movie.”

Source: Joystiq

Nintendo Not Matching $1 Games

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Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has indicated that he is opposed to the lack of quality and value for mobile games and Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has stated that Nintendo won’t work with garage developers. Now, 3DS project lead Hideki Konno is saying the company won’t participate in the race to the bottom as far as prices.

“So now in terms of one dollar games, or free games, or whatever that is out there in the market, I mean, really, we’re not going to be competing with that,” said Konno. “We’re not going to try to match that; we’re just going to continually strive to not just maintain, but increase, the quality of the entertainment that we’re providing, and let it sort itself out. Again, we’re not worried about competing at a price point level.”

“I believe that’s more than likely Sony and Microsoft’s opinion on that as well. Now of course as a customer, if somebody said to me, ‘Hey, we’ve got Call of Duty on your portable device and it’s only going to cost you 100 yen,’ yeah, I’d be super stoked, really excited about that,” he added. And I’d be really excited to see a great game at a really cheap price, but I just don’t think that you could make a game that’s immersive and as big as, let’s say Call of Duty, or any other large title, and sell it at that price point; it’s just not possible. The only way that you’re going to get a game at that price point is if it’s a limited version with limited levels or something. They’re going to have to reduce it to sell at that price. So that other game — because the content is valuable — it’s still going to be a viable product at a higher price point.”

“If we went out and created one of our titles — a big title for Nintendo — and we decided to sell it at, like, say 100 yen, how many do we have to sell to get back our investment ” Konno questioned. “That number’s insane. It’s just incredible, right As a game developer I’ve put my heart into what I create, and I’m hoping that what I’m putting out there is something that people will be engaged by and entertained by. And as a consumer, I want the same thing. If I go and I see a game that interests me and I think I want to play it, I don’t mind the fact that I have to pay a reasonable price for it.”

“I’m not trying to say that I think games on cell phones are a bad thing; I’m not trying to say that they’re worthless, or have no value at all. I’m just saying that they’re just different, he said.

Source: Gamasutra

Apple Sues Amazon Over ‘App Store’ Name

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Apple has sued Amazon over the use of the term App Store which Apple claims to have trademarked. Apple is accusing the online retailer of trademark infringement and unfair competition while noting that they’re planning to use the name for the with a mobile-software download service.

Amazon has begun improperly using Apple s App Store mark in connection with Amazon s mobile-software developer program, Apple said in the complaint. Amazon has unlawfully used the App Store mark to solicit software developers throughout the United States.

Apple is asking for a judge s order to prevent Amazon from using the App Store name, along with unspecified damages.

Source: Bloomberg

 

Thor: Fate Of Asgard

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Many enemies will test Thor in the upcoming game. Check out some of the enemies and some of the moves that make this game look like God of War.