When it comes to mobile advertising, some companies are certainly grasping onto popular trends, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re all in with some form of strategy.
Mediapost recently reported that, according to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and its most recently study, only 17 percent of marketers polled in the study believe that their mobile strategies are fully integrated and aligned with overall marketing strategies. In the same poll, 31 percent stated that they don’t have a strategy in place, or believe that mobile is best viewed as a campaign, rather than a general strategy.
The study, conducted in partnership with SAS, also revealed that 61 percent of marketers surveyed did use some form of mobile engagement, while 54 percent of respondents believe that mobile channels are a critical part to customer interaction, as well as retention and brand differentiation. However, in general, marketers just don’t have that grasp yet on how to incorporate mobile into an overall strategy.
Some simply believe it’s not a crucial part of a campaign. 48 percent believe that mobile isn’t big enough to be part of marketing and engagement strategies, while 28 percent believe it’s more suited for campaign purposes, and not strategy. 24 percent feel that mobile overall is quite confusing, and hard to approach.
Some still believe mobile is a key part to an overall business solution, but only 10 percent of those feel it’s just a campaign, and 7 percent are confused with it overall. That said, 57 percent believe it’s a valued channel when it comes to consumer outreach.
Eventually, marketers may adapt to ideas that are better suited for the mobile market, but, for now, it appears that the idea of putting together a sound strategy over accepting general campaign terms just isn’t highly accepted yet. However, with the way certain trends are growing – particularly with revenue – that could change sooner rather than later.
According to a new report from Eedar, the mobile gaming audience is getting younger. Compared to just a year ago, the average mobile
gamer’s age has decreased by 7 years to 27.7 years old. The survey information was taken from 3,500 smartphone and tablet gamers in August of this year.
Eedar is careful to point out the role of core gamers in the gaming landscape, pointing out that they are playing mobile games “as an extension of a brand or experience they are using on another platform.”
While men are outnumbered by women in player numbers on mobile, men are more likely to be big spenders on the platform, spending at least $10 a month, with “whales” spending nearly $300 a year.
As mobile gaming continues to attract these core gamers and finds new ways to attract spending from casual gamers, mobile gaming is a hugely growing market, set to surpass traditional consoles by 2015, reaching $30.3 billion in revenue.
That number could reach $40.9 billion in 2017 according to a forecast from Newzoo. While smartphones account for the majority of this total, tablet gaming is an area of increasing monetization, with a compound annual growth rate of 33.3 percent between 2013 and 2017 compared to smartphones at 19.2 percent.
On Friday, Facebook unveiled in a new blog post that they would be making it even easier to unfollow friends and items in your newsfeed than ever before. If you were concerned about organic reach before, this utility will possibly make that reach even less– if your content isn’t up to snuff.
This all is in line with Mark Zuckerberg’s recent Q&A, where we discussed how Facebook is taking strides to give users more control over how they want their Facebook feeds to look like.
So what does this mean for brands whose pages are more often than not buried in mix without a paid boost It’s going to take a bit more to ensure users aren’t unfollowing you. Just one lackluster post could mean a big dip in followers and more users choosing to see less of your content.
For now, the feature is available on desktop and mobile web version of Facebook but will soon be coming to the social network’s popular mobile app.
Fullscreen is acquiring Rooster Teeth, the Austin-based production company, YouTube channel, and YouTube network led by Matt Hullum and Burnie Burns.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Fullscreen says it plans to “enhance” Rooster Teeth’s already-robust live events and merchandise businesses, as well as integrate the gaming and culture brand into its technology and ad infrastructure.
Also as part of the deal, Fullscreen will support the production of Rooster Teeth content, including existing hit series as well as the development of new premium formats. In the past decade, Rooster Teeth has been behind some of the most popular content on the web, including “Red vs. Blue,” “RWBY,” “The Gauntlet,” and “The Slow Mo Guys.” The company also produces live-action shorts, and is currently working on its first feature-length film, “Lazer Team.”
Here are some of the top personnel moves in marketing last week. Our congratulations to these people taking on new challenges!
Rocco Scandizzo will be the managing director of Psyop Games, accepting the role after more than two years as a video games agent for the Creative Artists Agency. Find out more here.
Jenny Richards-Stewart has been appointed CEO of Women In Games Jobs, the non-profit organization dedicated to promoting gender balance and equality in the games industry. Find out more here.
Former EA executive Nick Earl is now the boss of worldwide studios at the the free-to-play mobile developer, Kabam. Find out more here.
Jessica Schell has joined Warner Bros. Home Entertainment as its executive VP and general manager, film. A longtime executive at Universal Pictures, Schell offers extensive digital experience at a time that studios are overhauling their approach to home entertainment. Find out more here.
Omnia Media, a YouTube multi-channel network focused on music, gaming, and style content, has named Chris Yates its new vice president of monetization. Find out more here.
GoPro has hired veteran media executive Zander Lurie as GoPro’s first senior vice president of media. Find out more here.
Multichannel network StyleHaul, which is being acquired by RTL Group in a deal worth up to $200 million, has hired Noel Mika Bahamon to head up e-commerce strategy and consumer-product development. Find out more here.
Netflix has hired Larry Tanz, CEO of Vuguru, the digital studio owned by former Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner, as VP of content acquisition for Europe later this year, based in Los Angeles. Find out more here.
Once again Blizzard is hosting BlizzCon, the eighth time the company has held this convention for its most devoted fans. The audience is immense, with more than 20,000 people attending in person, with millions more expected to tune in to the more than 50 broadcast streams in 14 languages being provided by Blizzard’s wall-to-wall coverage.
The convention includes not only world final competitions in Hearthstone, StarCraft II, World of Warcraft Arena, and Heroes of the Storm, but it’s also packed with seminars, cosplayers, many new game features to try out at the show – and even a new game. Cosplayers stalk the halls, there’s a costume contest and a talent contest, and to cap it all off there’s a concert by Metallica to look forward to at the climax of the show. Oh, yes, and there’s plenty of news to set the fan’s hearts afire with anticipation and excitement.
BlizzCon is a marketing tour-de-force for Blizzard, providing value to the company on multiple levels. Before getting into that analysis, though, Blizzard’s news (announced during the opening ceremony) is quite consequential and deserves discussion on its own.
As expected, there’s more news about Blizzard’s existing games as well as announced games that are in development. All of the major World of Warcraft news coming up is already known with the release of the massive Warlords of Draenor expansion arriving shortly. Still, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime did announce that a charity pet will be put on sale inside World of Warcraft this December to benefit the RED Cross in Ebola relief efforts. The Warcraft movie, heading to theaters in 2016, also got a lot of attention.
Hearthstone‘s first expansion was announced as Goblins Vs. Gnomes, launching in December, along with the arrival of Hearthstone on Android tablets. Starcraft II gets a new stand-alone expansion with StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, with a new multiplayer mode that lets two players control a single base. While Heroes of the Storm is still in alpha, the closed beta was announced for January, and the game is getting The Lost Vikings as part of the array of heroes.
The biggest news, though, was the unveiling of Overwatch, a new multi-player team battle game which many observers compared to Team Fortress. The introduction including an impressive cinematic reminiscent of Pixar films, and a healthy chunk of gameplay showing the game in action.
The advanced state of Overwatch may have puzzled some people, but it’s not surprising when you realize that much of it was salvaged from the massive Titan development project that was canceled some time ago. That game, a multi-year development effort that is rumored to have cost well over $100 million, was apparently a massive effort that included many things, and ultimately Blizzard felt it just wasn’t what they were looking for.
Judging by the enthusiastic response from the BlizzCon attendees and the Internet, though, Overwatch looks like it has plenty of audience appeal. Blizzard was careful to point out that the game would have “widespread appeal” and be very approachable, though no one from the company would address the elephant in the room – would this game be free-to-play That would seem like a distinct possibility, but we’ll ave to see how the game develops as it gets into the hands of players during the upcoming alpha and beta testing phases.
The enthusiasm generated for Overwatch (especially when it was announced that there are over 600 computers set up at BlizzCon for attendees to play the game for themselves) demonstrates very clearly the marketing value of BlizzCon. Yes, putting on an event like this is an immense effort and expense for Blizzard, which is why they haven’t made it an annual event (some years the convention just doesn’t make an appearance).
The utility of BlizzCon, even despite the cost and effort required, shows clearly the importance of audience in this era of the game industry. Hearthstone is certainly a good game, but if it didn’t have a connection to the vast and enthusiastic Warcraft audience it world certainly be much, much smaller. This show is a terrific way to keep fans engaged in the company’s brands, and to get them enthused for new brands like Overwatch. More than that, while Blizzard may or may not make money on the event, it does sell a lot of tickets to help defray the costs. Not to mention DirecTV is a sponsor, and no doubt contributing to the event. How often can you say that about marketing expenses
BlizzCon shows the value of providing content to your audience, especially when you have games that are worthy of such engagement. Now, it would make sense for King Digital to have a Candy Crush convention – the company’s products have a thin coating of content over the chewy gameplay center, and those games are not something that create fans devoted in the same way as World of Warcraft fans.
Activision has held Call of Duty conventions, which are similar but don’t have the depth or the breadth that BlizzCon does. Blizzard has a range of titles with dedicated fans and rich backgrounds, and there are few companies that can boast that. Still, some games have deep followings that might be interested in a virtual convention, or other sorts of events dedicated to fans of the game. Certainly something like The Elder Scrolls universe has the right kind of following for this.
Marketers should be taking notes about how Blizzard is creating all kinds of marketing materials around BlizzCon. The benefits don’t stop here, as fans will be watching videos created at this event for months ahead, endless articles will be written, and generally this is creating a tremendous amount of engagement for Blizzard. If you’ve got a game that has potential for deep content, BlizzCon is a master class in marketing.
In effort to position Delta as an “unboring” way to fly, similar to Virgin America’s latest campaign, Delta has gamified your boredom with a pretty great incentive: a free flight.
It’s called CloudGazer and it’s very basically just clicking around on a bunch of clouds to rack up as many points as possible for as long as you can. Don’t idle for more than 30 seconds, or your game will end and you’ll be farther away from winning Delta’s free flight to anywhere Delta goes.
Airline companies seem keen lately to brand flight as the least boring of all travel methods. Delta’s campaign is complete with it’s own branded hashtag, #unbored.
Now you know what you’re doing with your Friday night.
It’s Friday, and that means another round of the week’s best trailers. This week brings plenty of highlights from movies and video games, so let’s just jump right in with both feet.
Riot Games has just added some significant new changes to the realm of Summoner’s Rift in League of Legends, introducing said changes in an interactive guide that can be found here. Fans of the game can explore the many differences Riot has implemented into the world, including videos like the one seen above.
Back in the year 2000, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for Nintendo 64, a decidedly darker chapter in the popular adventure series. It became a cult favorite, which is all the more reason that the publisher will re-release the game for Nintendo 3DS next year. Majora’s Mask was one of the many highlights in the company’s latest Nintendo Direct special, which can be viewed here.
Disney unveiled its newest trailer for Rob Marshall’s musical spectacular, Into the Woods, which will open Christmas Day. This new piece of footage features a number of stars, including Anna Kendrick, Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp, who finally makes an appearance as the Big Bad Wolf. Expect this movie to clean up easily at the box office.
The final chapter of the Hobbit trilogy is just a few weeks’ away from release in theaters, and director Peter Jackson promises it will be the “defining” chapter in the series, setting events for the classic Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Fans can check out the film when it arrives on December 17th.
Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9 and Elysium, brings his science fiction touch to a different kind of film with Chappie, which releases next year. Featuring Sharlto Copley and Hugh Jackman, the story follows a quirky robot who essentially tries to adapt to human feelings, only to run into conflict. The unique style of this trailer definitely piques interest in the final film, which will arrive early next year.
Last but certainly not least, Blizzard introduced its first original game property in 17 years this morning at its annual Blizzcon event, with the debut of Overwatch. The game appears to be a team-based PC shooter, although more specific details are likely to be revealed in 2015. For now, the Pixar-style trailer above is certainly worth a watch.
For a while, Nintendo was struggling with its Wii U console, with third-party developers dropping support for the system and worries that it would break the company’s successful streak of popular video game hardware. However, as of late, it’s gone through a turn-around, fueled by the forthcoming Amiibo toy line and such powerhouse game releases as Super Smash Bros. (due November 21st) and Mario Kart 8.
In an interview with Re/code, Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime got around to addressing these concerns, but seemed confident that the company would see a strong holiday season, leading into an even bigger and better 2015 line-up.
First up, Fils-Aime discussed the company’s recent turn-around in profits, with the previous quarter showing an increase after so many losses. “We are fortunate that on both our handheld business and our home-console business, we speak to a very wide group of consumers: From children having their first gaming experience to that more active gaming demographic to their parents, it’s a very wide swath. Our demographic footprint is very wide, very diverse, and that’s a key advantage for us. You can’t say that for some of our more direct competitors,” said Fils-Aime.
He also expressed confidence in the company’s holiday line-up. “A great holiday for Nintendo of America is [the multiplayer fighting game] Super Smash Bros. — not only a strong launch of Smash Bros. for Wii U, but continued strength for Smash Bros. 3DS. A strong holiday for us is Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, having a strong launch of those games and continued strong sell-through of [last year’s] Pokemon X and Pokémon Y. Lastly, an effective launch of the Amiibo (interactive toys) platform. We do those three things well, we’ll have a very strong holiday season.”
As for third-party support, Fils-Aime remained bullish on the Wii U’s performance. “In the end, what third-party companies want is a large install base to sell their games into [and] a wide demographic footprint that they can target their games to,” he said. “They also want a robust connected environment so that they themselves can explore downloadable content or digital sales. [For] the Wii U business, year-to-date versus last year, our install base is almost doubled. We’re building that footprint for developers, with a range of games from Bayonetta 2 to Mario Kart.”
He also didn’t show much concern over the console’s lack of a new Call of Duty game for the first time since its release. Said Fils-Aime, “I would answer the question in a couple ways. Third parties are bringing multi-platform content to our platform – Watch Dogs from Ubisoft, as an example. I would love to have Call of Duty on our platform. I would love to have any of the big blockbuster, multi-platform titles. But I have to say, more specifically, I want games that provide a differentiated consumer experience. If you look at the other two competitive platforms, fundamentally, what’s the difference ”
Finally, Fils-Aime addressed the growing market of digital sales, compared to physical copies of games. “Retail still is the majority of the business for us. But what’s interesting is, game by game and at different points in time, you see a different consumer reaction,” he said. “Smash Bros. for 3DS, consumers wanted that game immediately. They didn’t even want to spend the time to get in their car and drive to retail to get it, so our digital percent for that game is quite high — about 20 percent of the games sold here in the U.S. were digital, which is a pretty significant piece. Compare that to Bayonetta 2. That’s a huge game, and could take up a large part of the memory in the 32-gig Wii U. That’s a game with a digital percent on the lower side, today about 10 percent or so. Our mentality is, we want the consumer to have the choice based on what makes sense for you, what makes sense for the type of game it is.”
Mobile games are huge right now, but that doesn’t mean every company that produces them will see a long-term success. This is mainly due to the abundance of games available right now, as well as having them be as full-featured as other top-of-the-line releases.
EEDAR recently compiled a report explaining how companies can succeed with their game products in an ever-growing North American market, which was posted by GamesBeat earlier this week.
The report shows that 194.8 million consumers have access to a smartphone or tablet, providing great access to some form of gaming experience. Out of those, 141.9 million people take part in games, expanding the market to a whopping $4.6 billion for the previous year.
“We are finding a lot of the people playing on mobile are already playing core games on consoles,” said Patrick Walker, the head of insights at EEDAR. “We see huge growth, but only a small number of game publishers are profiting from a small percentage of mobile gamers who pay. Mobile is more and more saturated. The big winners are winning big.”
Working off of a database of 80 million researched data points across 50,000 different game products, a portion of the report is available for viewing here, with the rest available for purchase. It breaks down some of the more basic steps in finding success with a game, such as segmenting properly into a market, as well as following five parts: discovery, engagement, virality, monetization and churn.
Such a program can be successful, as companies like King and Supergiant have proven with Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans, respectively. However, the report feels that a portfolio analysis wouldn’t hurt either, looking for ways to expand upon a userbase and appeal to a greater market as a result.
Surprisingly enough, a little can go a long way as well when it comes to games on the market. GamesIndustry International found that the study also breaks down how six percent of U.S. mobile gamers can generate more than half of the overall revenue for the industry, at 51 percent. The “whales,” as they’re dubbed, spend at least $10 a month on in-game purchases, while those spending even heavier can go through as much as nearly $300 in a year.
Those interested in finding success with games should definitely give the report a read.
