Teens Continue To Leave Facebook For Instagram

Facebook continues to lose traction among teenagers, according to RTT News. The teenage audience has been migrating to other apps, and the the trend continues according to the latest numbers.

A recent survey conducted by Magid Social Media indicates that a large number of teens, between the ages of 13 and 17 years old, have left Facebook and Twitter in favor of other social sites. Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat have apparently gained these viewers, offering more interactivity in terms of posting pictures and having more avid conversations.

Facebook dropped to 88 percent in teenage use, a drop from last year’s 94 percent. As far as why they may have left the service, some believe it is due to the fact that their parents and relatives can see their posts all too easily, while other sites offer a bit more security.

Snapchat has managed to gain 50 percent of this audience, while Instagram was close behind with 25 percent, according to the poll results.

Another survey conducted by Piper Jaffrey back up these findings, according to Metro’s site. Adelaide Lobenthal, one of the youngsters who spoke up during the study, explained, “People say, like, if you didn’t Instagram it, it didn’t happen.”

Instagram still has a bit of a strain when it comes to connecting to other users as easily as you could through Facebook. However, perhaps that’s what certain teen users want, being able to share pictures with others without direct interaction – or fear that those relatives may see something that they shouldn’t. (Snapchat has a similar “private conversation” set-up, so that not everyone can see what’s being discussed.)

While Facebook isn’t too worried about the move over to Instagram – it owns the photo site – Snapchat could pose a threat down the road, with its rise in social audience and privacy features that make it easy to post things that not everyone will be able to see.

The real concern for Facebook is that advertisers may begin to look at other social media in order to reach teenagers. The shift may be small in numbers right now, but part of the issue is the cool factor. Is Facebook losing the thought leaders and influencers among teenagers That could be a signal to certain brands that other social media is the right place to be. That’s something both Facebook and different brands will be paying attention to in the future.

Expect leading brands to keep an eye on what teens are getting into as far as social sites go – and where the staff of such sites go in terms of offering features to perhaps bring them back…

Twitter’s New Use Of Promoted Tweets

For a while there, the only place you could see promoted tweets through certain companies was through Twitter itself. However, according to Adweek, the social media site has plans to expand its reach over to other sites.

With the new plan, Twitter vows to increase its ad exposure using promoted tweets on other sites. These include a number of partners where the messages can be seen, including Flipboard and Yahoo!’s Japanese division. Both sites already feature Twitter integration, through streams of messages that make it easy for viewers to see what’s going on.

The ads will look quite familiar to those who have seen them on Twitter, since they have the “same look and feel that is native,” according to the company.

“For the thousands of brands already advertising on Twitter, these new partnerships open a significant opportunity to extend the reach of their message to a larger audience,” said Twitter in a blog post.

Brands that take part in the program will be able to gauge the same targeting information and creativity that they did through the main Twitter site. It’s supposedly going to tie in with the MoPub ad network that was purchased a couple of years ago, in an effort to expand its already existing audience.

With this network in place, Twitter can reach a potential one billion users on mobile devices across various websites and properties. Its promoted tweets campaign has already been effective thus far, with 185 billion impressions outside Twitter. This will no doubt increase that even further.

“What makes Twitter unique is that tweets can flow from Twitter to other mediums seamlessly, like TV, websites and mobile applications,” the company explained.

The site has made a few changes in an effort to appeal to a much broader audience, with instant timelines that make it easy for new users to get acquainted, as well as a video player that utilizes the Snappy TV service that it picked up last year.

It may take a while to see how effective this program truly is, but if any site knows a social outreach, it’s certainly Twitter.

The Numbers Behind Mobile Gaming’s Great Super Bowl

The Super Bowl brought a number of memorable ads this year, but what was surprising was the mobile companies that advertised their games. A new Game of War: Fire Age ad featuring Kate Upton debuted; uCool invested millions in a small spot for Heroes Charge; and Liam Neeson vowed revenge in a costly but effective Clash of Clans ad.

Now the question is if the ads were effective — and, according to Adweek, they most certainly were, despite competition from car companies and big-budget Hollywood blockbusters-to-be.

“It reminds me of GoDaddy— do people know what domains are (and) do people know what hosting is I would expect no,” said Tuong Huy Nguyen, a research analyst for Gartner. “But, on the flip side, it says something about where gaming has gotten to today. It truly has become much more mass market, it’s not just what 18-to-32 year old males do.”

Out of all three companies, uCool’s Heroes Charge came in as the rookie but it still ran some good business. Following the TV ads that ran last year (and leading up to Sunday’s commercial), the brand has managed to allocate 75 percent of its marketing through TV, and 25 percent through digital.

 

“Through television, we’re seeing a ten-fold growth in our player volume, and with more than one million apps for players to choose to engage with, it’s really increased the cost to market in what is now an overly saturated area,” said Benjamin Gifford, vice president of user experience for uCool.

As for Upton and the new Game of War ad, Nguyen stated, “It ties into that mass-market appeal. (But) I’m going to say I’m skeptical of how successful that would be.”

 

Both Heroes Charge and Game of War generated good viewership both on television and through online video, but Clash of Clans got the most buzz with Neeson, as many ranked it amongst the best Super Bowl commercials.

“It wasn’t just the use of Liam Neeson — it was the story they were telling,” said Derek Rucker, professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “If you’re going to advertise for this massive audience, one thing to think of is how do you maximize your investment. Part of that is that you should show up with creative worthy of the Super Bowl.” (Which would explain why some believe that the brief Heroes Charge trailer was one of the weakest being offered, as it didn’t have much of a story to tell.)

 

Mobile also made an impact as far as using phones and tablets during the Big Game was concerned, according to eMarketer. Its stats indicate that 32 percent of respondents in a recent poll used their devices for Facebook, Twitter and other social media, while 20 percent tracked stats through sports-related apps like ESPN. Games were in third place with 19 percent, and no doubt that viewers of the above ads may have played a part in downloading and playing them.

Adweek’s analysis is superficial as far as mobile games are concerned, since it fails to take into account the long-term value of the users acquired by this means. Are game players acquired through TV advertising more or less valuable than game players acquired by other means That answer won’t be known for months, as it takes time for these games to monetize.

Still, the Big Game seems to mean big business to mobile game companies. We’re likely to see more TV ads next year for mobile games during the Super Bowl, for a variety of reasons.

Meet The Winners Of Super Bowl XLIX

by Jessica Klein

There’s no denying our commercial culture when it comes to the Super Bowl, one of the year’s biggest sporting and TV events that many people watch for the ads, and not the actual sport. In the spirit of these ads as entertainment, we worked with research technology firm Dialsmith to figure out which advertisers brought their A-game throughout Super Bowl XLIX and which ones dropped the ball – based on a sliding scale that allowed you, dear reader and (likely) Super Bowl viewer, to pinpoint the exact moments that you loved, hated, or felt indifferent about.

Here’s what you said…

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.

Seven Steps To Make New Gaming Hardware Successful

This year promises to be a banner one for interesting new gaming hardware, both accessories and platforms. There’s everything from Razer’s Forge TV box and other Android TV devices, various flavors of VR and AR including Oculus Rift, Sony’s Project Morpheus, Microsoft HoloLens, and Magic Leap; possible new hardware from Alibaba, an Apple TV with games, Steam Boxes, and a whole array of wearables, controllers, and other hardware that promises to revolutionize gaming to a greater or lesser degree.

One thing we can count on is that each of these devices will find varying degrees of success, despite the fact that each represents a non-trivial investment and time and effort — not to mention the opportunity costs of what else those companies could have spent their time creating.

You’d think that with so many examples of new gaming hardware, both successful and unsuccessful, from past years and decades, that companies would have figured out what makes some new hardware soar and what makes some crater. Apparently not, though, or perhaps it’s that hubris overwhelms rational analysis and planning far more often than it should.

Don’t rely on outside developers
Whatever it is that you think your new gaming hardware can do that’s exciting and worthy of the time and money of a vast audience, you have to be the company that delivers it — and it has to come with the hardware, or be available right at the same time. More than that, while it may seem like new hardware could enable some cool games, you have to demonstrate that.

The Kinect and the Move are perfect examples of this principle. Sure, the Wii had demonstrated that motion control was pretty cool and could attract tens of millions of new gamers — when the price was right, and the timing was right, and the games were easy and new. No doubt it seemed clear to Sony and Microsoft that they needed their own motion control hardware to jump in on this new style of gaming. But as it turned out, the Wii had already captured the casual gamers, and the more hardcore gamers weren’t interested in motion control unless it made a difference to the games they liked. It turned out that the Kinect and the Move couldn’t be used with more hardcore games for a variety of reasons. The overhead that hardware took was just too much, and even more important was the fact that no one really came up with a good reason to use that hardware in a hardcore game, anyway.

The problem continued with Kinect 2.0, which was a substantially better piece of hardware in every way (except cost). So Microsoft included it with the Xbox One, hoping that developers would seize upon it and build its capabilities into all kinds of games, and that it would lead to much more fun games as a result. But designers never really figured out a way to use it in most games, and no one wanted to go to the extra time and trouble to do that. Ultimately the Kinect never delivered a better gaming experience, and so Microsoft dropped it in order to make the Xbox One competitive — and sales soared.

Maybe there is a really cool game waiting to be delivered for the Kinect, but if Microsoft doesn’t it create it, no one will. It seems like Oculus understands this, because they’ve gone to the effort of setting up a publishing operation under veteran Jason Rubin. So does Magic Leap, hiring veteran Graeme Devine to get some games developed.

Holocraft demo

Don’t shut out outside developers
On the other hand, you can’t have a really successful piece of gaming hardware these days without third-party support. That’s why console developers have made it a priority to attract developers, even reaching out (with this new generation of consoles) to the formerly despised indie developers. Where you used to have to spend six figures to get development systems for consoles, now it’s cheap, and the bureaucratic nightmares you once had to navigate are substantially improved. The tools are a damn sight better, and cheaper, too.

It seems like most manufacturers have figured this one out, but it’s still not easy. Developers have plenty of platforms that they can target, so you have to convince them to make an effort for yours. That’s a long-term courtship, and you’re going to have to kiss a lot of frogs to generate a prince or two. Better stock up on flies to hand out at trade shows, too, to bring the frogs over to your booth. Good luck!

Don’t undercapitalize
While you’re planning this world-changing piece of hardware, don’t do it on a shoestring. You need plenty of capital to not only design and manufacture the hardware, and build sufficient inventory, you have to fund software development, developer relations, and you’d better have a strong marketing operation planned as well. Don’t forget to build and sustain your community, and have a creative and ongoing PR team, too.

Why go to all this effort Won’t all that show up just because you built a really cool widget Once upon a time, perhaps. But we’re in a world where new, cool widgets are arriving all the time. There’s plenty of competition for attention, even in the category of exciting new hardware that can play games. You’ve got to be ready to succeed for the long term, and that means piles of cash when you’re talking about hardware.

Deliver an experience, not just hardware
It’s not the door that’s important, it’s what you get when you walk through the door. Any piece of gaming hardware is an expensive paperweight without an impressive experience that it delivers. When you hear some hardware company proclaim “We can’t wait to see what happens when developers get their hands on this!” it’s a code for “We’re not really sure what people are going to like about this, but it gives great demo.”

Microsoft HoloLens

Snazzy videos showing beautiful people in rendered visualizations of supposedly fun gaming experiences are one thing; actually playing a game yourself and having fun is quite another. The correct response when you see a trailer for a new game or a new piece of gaming hardware is “Looks great, I’ll be interested to try it out for myself.” So hardware companies need to make sure they have something fun before the hardware ships, and confirm that by getting a lot of people to go hands on with it. And not just with a demo, but an actual game.

Don’t forget price is a critical feature
Price does more than many other features in defining an audience and sales figures. Just ask Microsoft about Xbox One sales at $499 and Xbox One sales at $349. Yes, it’s crass and crude, and not elegant like the beautifully machined casing or the gorgeous screen resolution, but when customers are in the store the price tag has a huge effect on whether or not they will take something home. An Oculus Rift at $199 is a whole different thing than an Oculus Rift at $399, or at $999. Analyze your intended market carefully, and how much they have to spend on your type of device. Yes, your hardware may be unlike anything else… but customers have other entertainment options at a variety of price points. Be competitive from the start, or you may never reach flight speed, much less orbital velocity.

Build a platform, not just a device
New gaming hardware, to reach high levels of success, needs to be a platform – someplace where a lot of people can stand and create more excitement and reasons to buy the hardware. That’s why console makers are so concerned about courting developers, and why those console sales figures are so important to them. Developers decide on platforms based on how big the installed base is, and yours is half the size of the other hardware, you just moved down the list.

It’s also about ease of development, share of revenue, quality of tools, and just how difficult it is to deal with your company. If you can’t attract the third-party developers, your success is determined by how much software you can develop and ship. This is Nintendo’s biggest problem right now – the Wii U is pretty much abandoned by major game publishers, and so its sales are largely tied to how often Nintendo can ship major new games for the Wii U. That turns out to be no more than a few times a year, which is not enough to generate great sales… and so third-party publishers continue to stay away. Breaking that cycle is difficult.

Timing is critical
Finally, while you want the hardware to be great, you can’t wait forever. Your competition may come out far enough in advance of you to steal your market, even if your product is ultimately better. Oculus may be the best VR helmet, but if Project Morpheus beats it to market by a year and does a pretty good job, that may leave the Oculus too far behind to catch up. You also have to make sure your software is ready at the same time as the hardware. Nintendo’s Wii U would have had a far better launch if titles like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. had been available its first Christmas, rather than its second.Â

Hardware companies should in fact know all of these things already, yet they will probably go on making mistakes in launching new hardware for a wide variety of reasons. Pass the popcorn, because this year promises to have some very interesting launches for gaming hardware. Let’s hope most of them are successful.

Larger Devices Are Changing Mobile

In the past, millions of users have relied on smaller mobile devices for both viewing and buying purposes, but it appears that the larger-screen peripherals could slowly but surely be taking over, according to Adweek.

With bigger devices, like tablets and the iPhone 6 models, people are able to take in a larger experience than they would on a smaller device. As a result, the Super Bowl was taken in with a larger viewership (NBC offered the game on streaming services, along with broadcast). This may be something that marketers will want to take note of, especially with even more devices likely to be introduced this year.

A report from Adobe Digital Index (ADI) indicates that phones with larger screens (four inches or more) are getting more traffic than they were in the past, while traffic from smaller devices are actually declining. The chart below shows that the increase and decrease in statistics aren’t sharp, but they are steady enough to notice a change in trend.

Larger-screen devices make videos easy to view, as ADI’s results indicate. The second graph below shows that consumption on tablets larger in size increased by 27 percent, while larger smartphones showed a rise by 56 percent, between the third and fourth quarters of last year.

With such a convenient, large device in their hands, users may be compelled to utilize them for more things on a daily basis — including purchases. ADI data indicates that mobile has a 29 percent share of online revenue overall during the Thanksgiving holiday, mostly through iPhone and iPad devices. The third chart below shows a breakdown of just how vital sales were for each device.

Also, according to the report, 46 percent of shoppers believe that they’re less likely to search for multiple options when using a specific app from a company, indicating that a simpler user interface may be their preferred choice when it comes to purchases. This may indicate that marketers should seek ways to draw in more owners of these larger devices, including such options as pre-roll video clips and other savvy tools that will make it easier to find and purchase the items they need.

Video consumption — and purchases — are likely to pick up this year, especially with new companies working on larger, convenient devices for release over the next few months. So don’t be surprised if marketers take part in a big upswing for these devices, in hopes for a better outreach.

Who knows? They just might play a bigger part in the Thanksgiving holiday sales for this year…

Wargaming’s Rocking New Deal With Vevo

Wargaming.net has done quite a suitable job when it comes to the word-of-mouth popularity from its online games, including World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and the forthcoming World of Warships. Wargaming has taken an interesting turn with its latest sponsorship deal, as it has joined forces with music video service Vevo to spread the word about Wargaming through totally unique channels.

The campaign, which will target the general rock and metal genres that the music channel has to offer, will focus on three of Wargaming’s biggest titles, including Tanks, Warships and World of Warplanes, with better awareness of the brand, according to Pocketgamer.biz.

Video game companies have marketed through other mediums before, such as co-branding cars in NASCAR, featured advertisements in film and other means. However, this really marks the first time that a video game company has specifically targeted a music channel for advertising, one that could be quite lucrative for both companies. It’s a different approach for Wargaming, and one that targets a demographic that may not be accessible through other media, or at least not as easily.

Starcom Media Vest group considers the deal a “coordinated takeover of Vevo’s rock and metal genres,” which will begin this month in various markets, including the United Kingdom, United States, Italy, Spain, France and Ireland. The Russian and Southeast Asian markets will follow soon thereafter, although a specific date wasn’t given.

“The Wargaming.net brand has been looking for a viable global music partner for some time,” said Al King, global brand director for the company. “We needed the right fit with our audience and a way to satisfy their love of rock and metal music. Vevo delivers this and the campaign that SMG’s LiquidThreat has negotiated is the perfect experience for our audience to relate to their interests and increase their excitement about the brand.”

Wargaming has already been highly successful at attracting an audience, as millions of gamers have flocked to the company’s free-to-play offerings on both PC and mobile, with tournaments being held on a regular basis and promotional items – like tanks from Brad Pitt’s feature film Fury – becoming available. Still, this deal should help bring more exposure to the games, while introducing a music channel that may introduce avid competitors to new tunes on their playlist.

How Nintendo Can Make Creators Happy Again

The launch of Nintendo’s Creator’s Program this week and the terms involved has sparked some upset from YouTubers at the legacy brand’s way of approaching content. Nintendo sees an opportunity to monetize these videos, giving creators 60 to 70 percent of the money from YouTube while letting creators use otherwise copyrighted material that the company has been diligent about taking down.

The program has created a bit of a dilemma for creators who want to be involved, but feel there is a conflict of interest.

“A YouTuber who makes money from game criticism and game reviews would have a problem reviewing a Nintendo game. Not only do you have to essentially pay Nintendo to review their games, you have to review the game by their rules. You signed a contract with them in order to be allowed to review their game,” says Geek Remix in a video now circulating which addresses the partnership program.

“I think this is a slap in the face to the YouTube channels that do focus on Nintendo games exclusively,” says Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, in a post to fans.

 

Sundance’s Curator Explains Why Virtual Has Become Reality

This year will likely be etched in history as the birth of virtual reality beyond gaming. At the 2015 Sundance Film Festival (which just wrapped up Feb. 1), the majority of the New Frontier technology projects focused on VR. Everywhere you turned there was someone immersed in a short story being told through an Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR. Indie developers have embraced the technology that was literally born at this very festival three years ago, when Lucky Palmer debuted his Oculus VR prototype to attendees in collaboration with journalist Nonny de la Peña for the VR experience, Hunger in Los Angeles.

Shari FrilotShari Frilot

Shari Frilot, who’s been curator of the New Frontier showcase since 2007, watched as Luckey’s technology first wowed gamers through Kickstarter, then enticed Mark Zuckerberg to pay $2 billion for Oculus VR, opened up new gaming experiences like CCP Games’ EVE Valkyrie (which was on display at last year’s New Frontier), and now has given independent filmmakers a brand new medium to explore storytelling. Frilot explains why Hollywood is mesmerized by VR and why storytellers are experimenting with gamification in this exclusive interview from the festival.

What impact do you see companies like Facebook, Samsung and Sony getting behind VR having on it as a medium for filmmakers of all types?

There’s a certain validating quality to it, but there’s also the resources, experience and the financial power and infrastructure that these companies can provide to something that’s quite experimental at this stage. It paves the way for others to make the leap to this medium. It’s important that Facebook bought Oculus because people know what Facebook is. They maybe didn’t know what virtual reality was, but Facebook buying Oculus creates an awareness of what virtual reality even is. So on the basic level of pop culture awareness, it really helps. Companies like Sony, Samsung and Fox have infrastructures that they’re invested in bringing things to market. So they can be there to work with the content creators to get things finished, and to pick up the slack financially to make sure that works get made and advertised. Remember, anything that you’re trying to put out there that’s telling a story also has to be marketed, so all that experience of marketing and distribution will be tapped to grow this field of virtual reality.

“It’s important that Facebook bought Oculus because people know what Facebook is. They maybe didn’t know what virtual reality was, but Facebook buying Oculus creates an awareness of what virtual reality even is.”

How have you seen Fox embrace VR?

They have the Fox Innovation Lab and they’re presently engaged in learning how to tell stories. They produced Felix & Paul’s experience, Wild, which is at New Frontier. And you can really see the distinction when a big studio gets involved with creating an experience that is separate from just repurposing footage from the set. This is an original production with the stars of Wild, but that experience doesn’t happen anywhere in the movie and it was shot in a different place. It was made independent of the film, almost like a DVD extra or a documentary about the movie. Fox can do this and they can do it really fast, faster than filmmakers who are making this work on their own dime.

What do you see virtual reality opening up for filmmakers as we see these types of short films and experiences here at Sundance?

For filmmakers, this is a whole new way to do special narrative that is only going to become more and more robust, whether they do these in chapters or whether they do these in longer formats. There can be room for both, and it’s been proved quite clearly in the success of a number of pieces that you can have a linear narrative that people really enjoy. They don’t necessarily have to have a fully branching interactive piece.

“For filmmakers, this is a whole new way to do special narrative that is only going to become more and more robust, whether they do these in chapters or whether they do these in longer formats.”

How have you seen video games blend into New Frontier this year?

There are a lot of interesting intersections with gaming and storytelling here. There’s 1979 Revolution, which tells the story of the Iranian Revolution and is also being developed for Oculus. There’s Possibilia, which was funded by Xbox Originals and is an example of gaming your way through a film experience, because you’re actually putting together a way to tell the story by selecting scenes through iPads. You’re experimenting and learning something about the nature of breaking up through this film. So it’s like gaming to the truth of breaking up.  Way to Go is more like a traditional game, but it’s also going through a cinematic filmic experience that’s more abstract. It’s a beautiful work with hand-painted animation and 360-degree controls both on a big screen and through VR. Derive, to a certain extent, engages you a little bit like a micro game as you play and interact with the city that you’re descending upon. Even Assent, the VR experience by artist Oscar Raby, isn’t necessarily a game, but there’s an interaction that you find in games that you don’t find in traditional cinema. You can explore any given scene in that experience for as long as you want until you decide that you want to move on, and you choose how you move on. You have some choices, and when I think about telling stories through gaming, I think about making choices. That’s really the mechanism of storytelling through the gaming process. So there’s a lot of that here.

 

‘Clash of Clans’ Dominates Super Bowl Game Ads

This year was a pretty busy one for Super Bowl advertising, and also among the first where mobile games made a huge impact. uCool spent a whopping $4.5 million for a 15-second spot for Heroes Charge; and Machine Zone spent a good amount of cash on a lucrative new ad for Game of War: Fire Age, once again featuring model Kate Upton.

However, it was Supercell making the biggest move with its latest advertisement for Clash of Clans. Not only did the company invest $9 million in a 60-second ad featuring its warriors at play, but it also employed a top-notch actor to take part in the proceedings – Liam Neeson, the star of the Taken series, amongst other action fare.

In the trailer, Neeson finds his army defeated by a random online player, and vows revenge – all while waiting on his latte. The ad can be viewed below.

Mobile Dev Memo explained the logistics behind going with a big-budget ad such as this one. With a large audience tuned in to the game (approximately 112.2 million watched last year’s), it’s an easy opportunity to get newcomers interested in a property – and adding a personality like Neeson makes it a little simpler to accept the content, rather than uCool’s “quickie” ad that says very little about the game, outside of some quick animatics.

Said Mobile Dev Memo in the article, “If just one percent of those viewers converted – a fairly reasonable rate for in-app advertising – then a cost-per-install of $16.04 was paid for 281k new users. While high, this CPI isn’t outside of a reasonable range that a developer might expect to pay for a game as old as Clash of Clans through in-app ads in the US, especially in such a large-scale campaign. These figures also don’t take into account the hundreds of thousands to millions of free commercial impressions that will likely be delivered via YouTube over the course of the next few months.

So the move pays off in spades. While Heroes Charge was considered by many to be a quick, forgettable ad (but still probably effective with a certain audience), Neeson’s Clash of Clans ad will likely make a bigger impact in the long run, especially with the actor still being quite popular in most circles. (His latest release, Taken 3, is still circulating in theaters.

 

“The aim of this strategy seems to be to target groups of people (likely men) that have come together to watch a sporting event and might discuss the mobile game after viewing the commercial,” the article continues. “This is a different tactic, serving a different type of game, than buying airtime to promote a single-player title. So if Supercell’s goal with its Super Bowl commercial was acquisition, it was likely a very specific type of acquisition: of a player that can download the game and instantly join an existing clan.

One thing’s for sure – Supercell is likely to continue such an angle with future campaigns, especially considering the effectiveness of Neeson’s appearance. Sure, the ads may cost a bit, but it seems like the payoff from new and existing consumers will certainly be worth it