Marketers Need Tools To Be Personal

Trends change within marketing all the time, and one that’s currently hot right now is personalization, as a lot of marketers are using data to create a viewpoint that customers can relate to. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone’s on board just yet.

A May 2014 study provided by Forrester Consulting (commissioned through ExactTarget Marketing Cloud) indicates that, despite the growth in interest in personalization, it’s still rather small, with just 18 percent of U.S. digital marketing decision-makers working to create a personalized customer experience across digital touchpoints as a general goal.

As you can see by the chart, there are some who would consider using certain ideas when it comes to targeting and personalization tactics. 86 percent feel that using personalization and targeting based on broad segmentation and simple clustering techniques to execute campaigns in individual digital channels would be ideal. Closely behind with 83 percent is the idea that it can be used with simple business rules, and campaigns can be executed across digital channels.

However, some tools still need to be firmly grasped when it comes to personalization, such as self-learning analytics that work in real time, machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. Not everyone, it seems, is ready for those tools just yet — but there’s no better time to learn.

The main hurdle is that some execs feel that these technologies aren’t the best when it comes to real-time targeting and making decisions. They fall behind when compared to web analytics and email marketing, sitting on the wayside next to the likes of A/B and multivariate testing tools and next-best offer technology.

Technology does create challenges for marketers, according to a supplementary poll from Experian Data Quality. These challenges emerge when it comes to making a single customer view that creates a representation of the data known by an organization. With the poll, 40 percent of those asked (which includes 24 percent of US data management professionals) believe that the inability to link different technologies together is the biggest challenge, followed by poor data quality and a lack of relevant technology.

It’ll be interesting to see if marketing folks change with the times. It never hurts to evolve a little.

Source: eMarketer

Top 100 YouTube Channels Show Growth

We’ve touched on the subject of popular YouTube channels before, talking about how users like PewDiePie and others have managed to make a tremendous living setting up videos for the channel and interacting with their fans. However, it appears that their popularity is growing higher than anyone could’ve anticipated.

A new report from online video industry site Tubefilter and analytics firm OpenSlate indicates that the video channel still attracts more than one billion viewers a month, watching six billion hours of video. 40 percent of that traffic comes from mobile devices as well.

Out of those, the top 100 YouTube channels have managed to grow over 80 percent in viewership over the last year. A chart for July 2014 shows that the videos have collectively gathered 9.46 billion views for that month alone, up over 5 billion from July 2013.

Leading the pack is PewDiePie, also known as Swedish game personality Felix Kjellberg. For the year spanning from July 2013 to 2014, he’s managed to increase from 221.6 million views to 438.9 million views, and has nearly tripled his subscriber base from 11.75 million to 29.47 million.

Closely behind are DisneyCollector with 268 million views for the month, Stampy with nearly 200 million views, and The Diamond Minecart with 186.1 million views.

Out of all the videos features, it seems that music, games and comedy continue to be tremendous draws. TubeFilter’s report shows that the top 100 gaming channels by themselves managed to generate 4.34 billion views for July 2014 alone.

With the competitive video market set to grow from new offerings by Amazon (with its recently acquired Twitch services) and Yahoo!, it’ll be interesting to see where YouTube goes from here. One thing’s for sure – no matter what the competition may throw its way, it’s bound to keep a very large audience.

Source: The Guardian

Upsight And Adjust Team’s Analytic Team-Up

Marketers looking for a boost in app performance should probably pay close attention to a particular new team-up that’s making the rounds this week. Upsight, alongside with adjust Team, has announced a partnership that will utilize both companies’ analytics to help optimize app performance.

Through the partnership, Upsight’s enterprise-grade marketing will combine with adjust’s mobile attribution analytics, giving mobile marketers the opportunity to use Upsight more directly when it comes to understanding the performance of the acquisition channels on their app.

The company provides an example with Upsight Data Mine, which can conduct an ad hoc query of adjust’s ad campaign attribution data to assist with finding solutions to complex questions that can have an impact on marketing efforts. With these helpful insights, mobile marketers can make the most out of their ROI when it comes to marketing spending.

Upsight believes that getting the hang of acquisition and retention campaigns is vital when it comes to optimizing the value of an app’s user base. Through the use of adjust’s tools, the campaigns have a better visualization system for marketers to follow, allowing them to make adjustments that much easier.

“With this partnership, customers will get access to an industry-leading attribution product that, when combined with advanced analytics tools like Upsight Data Mine, will deliver highly valuable insights into the performance of acquisition marketing campaigns,” said Josh Williams, Chairman and CTO of Upsight. ³We¹re excited to work with adjust, a partner that shares our focus on data security and operates with integrity.”

“User focused attribution is essential for any marketing campaign ­ the ability to connect the user with the click, install and in-app activity means that the source of the most valuable users can be identified,” said CTO and Co-founder of adjust, Christian Henschel. “We¹re proud to partner with Upsight, offering comprehensive analytics and added features such as campaign re-attribution, which is essential for the re-engagement focused marketers.”

More details should be available over on the official Upsight page. No doubt this partnership is going to help a lot of mobile marketers.

Source: Upsight

Kabam Launches Transmedia Game

Fast-growing mobile and social game company Kabam has been very successful with massively multiplayer social games like Dragons of Atlantis: Heirs of the Dragon and Kingdoms of Camelot, along with licensed titles like The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth and Fast & Furious 6: The Game. Recently the company received a $120 million strategic investment from the diversified Chinese company Alibaba, along with a partnership for Alibaba to publish and distribute Kabam’s games in China. This investment values Kabam at more than $1 billion, which is in line with the compay’s expected revenue of over $550 million this year.

John Young

Kabam is launching a medieval-themed massively multiplayer strategy war game, Kings of the Realm, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, available worldwide on the App Store. The game is free-to-play, like all Kabam games, and lets players build up a massive medieval city and great armies through conquest. Players can also join forces with other players, and perhaps eventually be crowned King. Kings of the Realm is the first title developed by Digit Game Studios, a 20-person game development studio in Dublin, Ireland.

The twist with Kings of the Realm is that this is a transmedia game that launches together with a book published by Penguin and written by Oisin McGann, Kings of the Realm: Cruel Salvation. The novel is the second book in a series that, as its press release states, “delves into the characters and rich lore of a world in conflict. Gamers can immerse themselves in the complex personal struggles of the heroes in the book, while readers can forge their own destiny in the living world of the game. Designed with close collaboration between the writer and the developers, the interplay between books and game forges new ground in immersive entertainment.”

Kabam executive producer John Young spoke exclusively with [a]list daily about Kings of the Realm and its transmedia impact

What lead to the creation of this transmedia event . . . did the first novel start things off, or was this conceived initially by the author and the game developers as a transmedia project?

Our developer, Digit Game Studios, conceived of a compelling world of dark epic fantasy. The gritty realism was a refreshing change from the more cartoony strategy games that are popular. The game is the lead product and the book is designed to accentuate the world. During development, it came to the attention of one the editors of the Game of Thrones books who’d recently moved to Penguin. With their interest, an author was commissioned and he worked closely with the development team to write the books.

The first book details how a great evil was unleashed, and the personal struggles of some heroes who fight a heroic rearguard action against it. The game begins with the survivors starting to build anew, and allows characters from the book to be commanders of player armies in the game. The second book, also launching with the game, follows the heroes into this new world . . . I can’t give away the plot, but of course “adventures happen.” The books give life to the commanders and troops, while the game lets readers experience it all firsthand. It’s a combo that feels fun.

In addition to being cross-media, the game is cross-platform, with iOS, Android, and Kabam.com web players (and others!) all fighting in the same world against each other. We’ve even given special commanders to the mobile players. It’s all about making a compelling world that players can enjoy anywhere or in any medium.

How did Kabam come upon this property, and what aspects led Kabam to sign this?

Kabam Publishing looks at a lot of games, but Kings of the Realm really stood out. People were literally standing around in our office admiring the city screen on a widescreen monitor, which has over 80 uniquely crafted and animated buildings, all hand drawn and of varied shapes and sizes. It’s really the most beautiful city of any strategy game I’ve played. That was the light bulb moment—it just looks better than any game out there.

When we met the high quality team, and they wanted the kind of monetization, marketing, and featuring expertise we bring, we knew it was a great match. Together we’ve iterated, localized, tested, and collaborated on design. It’s a tremendous partnership and I see a strong future in 10-30 person teams building something with passion and focus, and then being accelerated by a company like Kabam.

Will the book be available as an e-book and a print book? Will there be cross-marketing between the book and the game, and what form will it take?

The book is largely electronic. We’re going to do cool things like have tournaments in the game that have the books as prizes, trivia contests in the in-game chat that reveal some of the lore that the books contains, cross-promotion between Kabam and Penguin’s respective newsletters, websites, and social media properties. We have grander plans as well.

Is a transmedia property like this easier or more difficult to market, and why?

Players and readers seem impressed by it, but players generally are looking for a game to play and readers generally want a book to read. So it’s not necessarily easy to drive an install by telling people that there is a book also. The game needs to be awesome in and of itself, and likewise for the book. This probably helps more with retention than with acquisition. But mostly we’re doing it because it’s cool and seems right for Kings of the Realm.

What do you see as the future for Kings of the Realm in terms of additional content (both for the game and for the novels)?

The novels feature a lot of the Devourers, zombie-like undead who are kicking the butts of humans, elves, and dwarves. They don’t exist in the game . . . yet. They kicked our butts in the books, so you can bet there is something exciting coming to the game once they catch up to the players. So you can expect events, world bosses, and some unique gameplay coming from that direction.

We have a huge items/crafting system that we’re hard at work on. It will really change the game and add tremendous depth to an already very intricate strategy game. Armor sets and epic weapons crafted to defeat wall-mounted ballistae and defensive catapults Coming soon!

We have big plans for a robust, unstable alliance system. What are “unstable” alliances We’re very inspired by MMOs like EVE Online, and so we can expect a multi-tier feudal network when players will have incentive to cooperate . . . until they suddenly don’t! Maintaining a great alliance will take diplomatic skill as well as military might.

Kabam has done very well with licensing established IP, and Kings of the Realm seems like getting in on the ground floor of a new IP. Do you expect Kabam to sign more new IP projects like this one, or stick more with established licenses?

Kabam does have a great track record working with the biggest IPs in the business (Hunger Games, Marvel, Mad Max, and Lord of the Rings are all upcoming partnerships we’ve announced). But we’re intentionally balanced: we have great internal projects and published projects which have created their own beautiful worlds. We hope that Kings of the Realm is perceived in a few years as an established IP, but first we need to make the game great and players thrilled. The beta has been fantastic so we have high hopes.

What sort of marketing is planned for Kings of the Realm, and does this differ from marketing other properties that are not transmedia?

Kabam is really, really good at acquisition marketing for games. It will be interesting to see whether the tie-ins we’ve done (for example, links from inside the book to the game) will be significant compared to the huge numbers that classic UA and platform featuring generate. We’re learning every day, which is what makes the process so much fun.

Who is Kings of the Realm designed for?

If you want to build an epic city, Kings of the Realm is for you. If you enjoy complex strategic decisions about which armies with which commanders and troops to sack which district of an enemy city, Kings of the Realm is for you. Kabam pretty much invented mobile strategy games, but hats off to the team at Machine Zone for Game of War. It’s a great game, but if you like that, check of Kings of the Realm and compare the two. We think you’ll like what you find.

GamesBeat 2014 — September 15-16, 2014

GamesBeat, a division of VentureBeat, has announced the final roster of participants for GamesBeat 2014 — the sixth annual event on disruption in the video game market. Being held on September 15-16 at the Parc 55 Wyndham in San Francisco, the event welcomes 500 of the leading figures in the industry for two days of panels, fireside chats, and networking.

This year’s theme is “Total World Domination.” Gaming is competing on the world stage to become the dominant medium for entertainment. Will it succeed And will the game business be dominated by blockbusters across all platforms — consoles, PCs, mobile, and online — or will diversity thrive as indies stay strong

They’ll explore these ideas and more at the must-attend, very efficient two-day event with the movers and shakers of gaming.

Our friends at VentureBeat are offering our network a 20% discount on tickets. Register now and save using the code “alist”.

Featured speakers include:

  • Andrew Wilson, CEO, EA
  • Mike Frazzini, VP of Games, Amazon
  • Rick Thompson, Managing Partner, Signia Venture Partners
  • Chris DeWolfe, CEO, SGN
  • Mike D. Gallagher, CEO, Entertainment Software Association
  • Lucy Bradshaw, SVP, Maxis, Electronic Arts
  • Tim Chang, Partner, Mayfield Fund
  • John Riccitiello, Investor, Syntertainment
  • Chris Petrovic, Head of Corporate Development & LIcensing, Kabam
  • Bob Mease, Head of Games Business Development, Google
  • Clive Downie, Chief Operating Officer, Zynga
  • Kym Nelson, SVP of Sales, Twitch
  • Will Harbin, CEO, Kixeye
  • Peter Molyneux, Creative Director, 22Cans
  • David Helgason, Co-Founder & CEO, Unity
  • See the full list here.

For more on the vision of GamesBeat 2014, including speaker updates and agenda changes, check out the event site.

 

Twitter Exec Speaks On Twitter’s Latest Revamp

Twitter wants to revamp its platform and is aiming to give users a more rewarding experience, starting with its homepage.

After tweaking the way its timeline works and opening up integrated analytics tools to all users, execs at the social network have decided to change the welcome process that greets new users, saying it’s the company’s “first major update in 3 years,” according to Re/code.

The front page at Twitter.com features a continuous rotation of images tweeted by users, while the process of finding people to follow from scratch has been improved, with the emphasis being split between people you might actually know and wellknown celebrities.

“People are consuming tweets as media a lot more now that we have photos that are pre-expanded in the platform,” said Twitter’s director of brand strategy Ross Hoffman regarding Twitter’s recent design changes and how they have affected user behavior. “On the trends side, we’ve seen interesting things. We’ve been seeing for some time certain memes that are now mainstream and baking them into campaigns.”

Hoffman’s job is to assure brands that Twitter remains valuable, even as recent questions involving slowing user growth are starting to be raised, according to Digital Trends.

“[It’s] that open, public exchange of information where you can see amazing things that are happening all over the world, whether it’s the world that you curated or the creative world,” said Hoffman explaining Twitter’s distinction from other platforms. “We’re real-time, we’re conversational, we’re distributed and we’re public.”

Additionally, in response to claims that the platform is difficult for first-timers to grasp, Twitter now begins its signup process by asking users about their interests, rather than trying to explain how the timeline works.

 

Source: Digital Trends

Brands Get Excited About Facebook’s New Ad Rollout

Facebook has a new ad format for Pages looking to promote their Events on the platform. The social network will now allow brands to create ads for the desktop and mobile News Feed, as opposed to the traditional right-hand column format on desktop.

The new installment is called Event response ads and is accessible in both the Ad Create tool and Power Editor. It’s also already available to all Page owners around the world, unlike most of Facebook’s advertising efforts.

Event hosts can now view analytics directly in the right-hand column of an event page, including data on the number of people who have seen a link to the event on Facebook, who has viewed the event, as well as the number of “joins,” “saves,” and “maybes” the event receives.

These are all insights that are considered “the first step” to help Pages understand which event promotions are working and which aren’t, according to Facebook.

If Facebook can increase its number of users through these ads, from an already astonishing 400 million, it will not only generate more revenue for itself, but will get even more of its user base to rely on the platform, which is always a plus in Facebook standards.

 

Source: The Next Web

Miu Miu Collaborates With Miranda July To Launch New App ‘Somebody’

Artist and filmmaker Miranda July, in conjunction with fashion brand Miu Miu, has created an app called Somebody that works as a messaging service, with a twist of humanity.

The idea behind the innovative app is that a stranger in the vicinity of your friend will deliver a personal message you have drafted, in person. Users can type a message and then choose a qualified person to deliver it based on other users’ photos and ratings.The delivery person and recipient are then given one another’s picture and GPS-based location, so they can meet and the message can be delivered.

The app, developed by Stinkdigital, was released last Thursday by July at the Venice Film Festival with a branded film by Prada-owned Miu Miu, portraying various “typical” scenarios featuring “Somebody,” and all superbly acted. Some are both comedic and over-the-top while others are moving but still hilarious. For example, one of the notable scenes features a waitress reading out a marriage proposal to a woman in the middle of a restaurant.

The short film was both written and directed by July.

Source: Creativity-Online

 

Legendary And YouTube Team Up for Spooky Content Competition

By Jessica Klein

Beginning on September 22, YouTube will embark on a horrifying endeavor with a man who truly knows the genre, Guillermo del Toro. The writer/director/producer will serve as a mentor for YouTube creators as they work to impress Legendary Entertainment with short-form horror films.

The Legendary/YouTube collaboration will work as a contest in which the YouTube creator with the best horror short wins a development deal with the film studio. To create the best work possible, contestants will be allowed to work out of one of the YouTube Spaces to produce their content.

For “YouTube House of Horrors: A Legendary Halloween” (the competition’s punny title), YouTube Spaces, currently located in Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo, will offer sets for creators that look like those from del Toro’s own work. New York’s YouTube Space is set to open in the city in November, too late for the Halloween-inspired event.

Del Toro will ultimately choose which creators’ work reigns supreme from each YouTube Space. Creators will have to produce their films by October 28.* Meanwhile, del Toro has a new horror film of his own coming out in 2015. On October 16 of that year, Universal will release his “Crimson Peak,” which was previewed at San Diego Comic-Con this past July.

All of the horror shorts will debut on the creators’ individual YouTube channels in addition to the channel of the YouTube Spaces they produced from and Legendary’s channel.

* This article has been updated to include the correct deadline for filmmakers to produce the films: October 28, instead of October 27 as it was originally stated.

This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.

 

Cookie Monster Gets Sesame Street App

“Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!” For years, Cookie Monster has found his way into the hearts of millions of kids (and adults) with his cookie-devouring antics and his goofy googly eyes. He’s also become a bigger star on the mainstream as of late, featured in a number of Sesame Street‘s more recent lampoons of a number of movies, including The Hunger Games.

Now, the big Monster is making his presence known on a new app, Cookie Monster’s Challenge. In the game, geared towards 3 to 5 year olds, players can take part in nine levels and 10 mini-games, learning self-control, focus and problem-solving while playing along with the lovable monster.

“We’ve created a series of fun brain-building games designed to challenge and engage young children and to help Cookie get what he desires the most – a cookie!” said Scott Chambers, senior vice president for Worldwide Media Distribution over at Sesame Workshop. “As children play, they practice important skills that are essential for school readiness.”

The game will closely follow the same school skills as the popular Sesame Street show, which will add new installments of Cookie’s Crumby Pictures to go along with the app. These segments will have Cookie Monster helping kids out with various coping strategies. Elmo the Musical and Super Grover 2.0 segments will also be introduced.

In addition, another game will also be released shortly after Cookie Monster’s Challenge. Titled Abby’s Sandbox Search, the game, which can be found on PBS’ Kids page this fall, lets players play along with letters, sounds and alliteration.

Meanwhile, Cookie Monster’s debut game will arrive on the App Store on September 15. There’s no word on pricing just yet, but it’s likely to cost around the same as, well, a package of cookies. Now that’s something worth certainly snacking on. NOM NOM.

Source: Mediapost