Snickers In Madden: Too Much?

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Kodak {link no longer active} reports:

In the cinematic opening to every game in Madden 10, the team logos slam to the turf, game-of-the-week style. Then comes the Snickers promo. “Prepare for CHOMPETITION.” OK, I – forgive me – Snickered at that the first time.

Then boothman Tom Hammond pipes up, informing us that this broadcast is sponsored by, of course, Snickers, and to “play like a CHOMPION.” And as a final reminder at the coin toss, Snickers tells us “CHEWS WISELY.”

All of this follows a Snickers ad on the loading screen. For sports fans who like stats, that’s four direct advertising messages, three of them puns, before you even snap the ball.

Sprint and Burger King also have in-Madden advertising, but what bothered Kotaku writer Owen Good about the Snickers integration was how the game’s announcers joined in the action, questioning whether or not paying $60 for a game was enough to not be inundated with advertising.

Maybe there’s a way to release for-pay DLC to turn off a game’s advertising, or to not make it too integral to the game experience (although the recent Wipeout HD loading screen ads weren’t accepted too happily). Does he have a point, or is this just par for the future course of game marketing?

Need Xbox Avatar Ideas? Here’s 137

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This week s Xbox 360 Dashboard update will mark the opening of the Xbox Avatar Marketplace, where Xbox Live members will be able to purchase clothes and gear for their avatars.

Marketers need to take note that this is a very innovative way to market your game s brand to a highly-engaged audience.  Xbox Avatars were once looked at as quick knock-offs of Nintendo’s popular Mii characters, but Microsoft has done well in integrating them in more ways, including in games like 1 vs. 100, and on the system s dashboard itself.

If you want some idea of what gamers are going to look at this week, Kotaku has a gallery of 137 shirts, pants, toys and more that should be helpful.  This should give you some ideas when it’s time to outfit your audience.

[lots of threads at Kotaku]

Social Media And Its Impact On Videogame Advertising

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Recently Razorfish released their study The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report . There is some tremendous information contained in this report. One major development is their attempt to create an industry standard measurement device called, SIM Score (Social Influence Marketing). They have defined this metric to mean two things:

The total share of consumer conversations your brand has online = REACH
The degree to which your consumers like or dislike your brand when they talk to each other online = CONSUMER SENTIMENT

They measure this by scouring the web and conducting online surveys. In essence it really boils down to how favorable your brands opinion is versus its industry standard. Is an online survey the proper method to determine this metric For the game industry how do we set an industry benchmark It just won’t be clean since we have so many variables that make up our product offerings; genres, platforms, distribution methods, online vs. offline etc. There is just no way Wii Fit can be benchmarked against World of Warcraft.

So while Razorfish should be commended for their attempt to get marketers to start measuring the impact of social media and their SIM score might work for the auto industry or the financial sector it just does not work for our industry.

So what metrics should we hold our social media efforts up against to measure their success or failure and determine their ROI Our consumers are some of the most vocal and social media advanced consumers any industry may have. Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg for gamers. There are thousands of conversations going on about your game right now on thousands of websites, blogs, forum posts, instant messenger clients, mobile texts, playgrounds, college dorm rooms, mothers groups, retirement communities you name it.

The answer to the initial question about how to measure all of this is not answered simply with just one new data point on your media plan.

Really the most important thing to recognize in our industry is that these conversations exist. That’s the first step. The next step is figuring out how to influence these conversations. This part is really not that different than what we have been doing for years now. Influence is something we have always strived for in our ads. What changes is that now your message is not just absorbed and recognized as delivered, it s discussed, debated and shared.

The [a] list summit this year has a panel discussion hosted by Scott Steinberg that is set to talk about this topic. Publishers are experimenting with all sorts of strategies of how to influence the discussion. The panel members will share their attempts, some successful some not so much.

The theme for this year’s event (which I spoke about last week) has a lot to do with this discussion. Providing value in your social media message goes a long way towards influencing the sentiment positively. One sure fire way to get the discussion going and have people talking excitedly about your game is entertaining them.

The net net is that social media is here and your consumers are using it. There are tremendous opportunities that exist for game marketers to efficiently distribute their games message via these channels for very little money. The truly successful campaigns will be relevant, entertaining and discussion worthy.

No One Knows This Logo

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Google last year announced a contest to create a creative video that focuses on the logo for Google Chrome, their Web browser.  The problem Google faced was trying to penetrate a market dominated by Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox, and their Google Chrome branding would be key to making it a three-man race.

Here is the original contest video:

Now the results are in and you can see what Google Chrome users have done by clicking over to YouTube {link no longer active}.

Is the strategy working, and is it something that can be applied to some of the lesser known game IPs that are trying to become breakthrough hits   For example, would a game like Mirror’s Edge (critically solid, but a sales bust) have benefited from a contest that asked users to contribute to the Mirror’s Edge story/brand/main characterGoogle Chrome has a browser marketshare of 2.6 percent, up from 1.7 percent in the first six months of this year.

Don’t Be A Social Media D***

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From Direct Marketing Observations:

Wanna know something great about social media? If you’re a dick, eventually people will know it. Why? Because of the transparent nature of the platforms and its associated tools. You see, if you hang yourself out there far enough, your personality starts to show. Take Twitter for example. If you Tweet long enough, patterns start to form. Just like in grade school, high school and college and at your work. You start to see the personalities of the people that you hang with every day.

We get it, social media can allow conversations to flow fast and furious, and some of us can lose our cool, especially in the volatile video game industry with its fanatics and advocates.

Just remember, everyone’s watching, so handle yourself with some composure and respect, and the audience will realize you’re not just trolling social media, looking to sell your wares.

Build up your reputation through social media and don’t misstep too often, and you ll find yourself ahead of the pack.

Become A Smart Social Media Buyer

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As important as budget is the way you spend it, we all know that.  It doesn t pay to be too thrifty until you have a strategy that maximizes every dollar spent, and Budgets Are Sexy {link no longer active} (are they ) has some analysis on the matter.

The boil it down to a few bulletpoints:

–    Use Twitter Search to see trends in user conversations about a product
–    Shop Social Communities (they recommend Buxr) to see what people are actually buying
–    See What Your Facebook Friends Say, using Facebook apps like What I Want to see what that targeted audience is looking for
–    Use Product Review Aggregators, again to see the feeling a general audience has about released products

Social media gives you a chance to really analyze the public s perception of a released or upcoming product, and you should give these tools a chance to bring you more insight.

[more at Budgets Are Sexy] {link no longer active}

Barclaycard App Shows You How Its Done

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The UK-based Barclaycard recently launched an iPhone app called Waterslide Extreme, and since it s launch last month it has been downloaded 4 million times.

The free app has the distinction of being the most popular branded app in the entire iTunes library in 57 countries.

How did this happen Ad Age {link no longer active} lends some insight:

The game is based on a popular TV spot by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London, in which an office worker strips down to his Speedo and gets on a water slide for a high-octane commute home. On the way, he uses his Barclaycard at various points to pay for groceries or train tickets.

In the iPhone game, players negotiate their way down the twists and turns of a massive urban water slide, picking up as many points as they can along the way. Players can ride the slide from a first-person or third-person perspective as either a male or a female character. The app is subtly branded with the Barclaycard logo.

Quick lessons: keep the branding subtle, make the game fun and free, and try to tie it into a larger campaign so it feeds off each other. Simple enough, right Right…

EXCLUSIVE FEATURE: The Twitter And Facebook Game

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The past few years have seen a variety of social networks increasing in popularity, usually engaging the same extremely valuable 18-34 year old demographic video games are going after.

Now the convergence between video games and social networks is upon us.  Here we take a look at a few social networks and where they fit into each console’s roadmap, and hopefully this will help you in identifying opportunities in this emerging market.

Facebook

Facebook is the mother of all social networks (sorry, MySpace), with a quarter-billion users worldwide, so it’s no surprise everyone’s scrambling for a piece of the action.

Current State: The only current options users have deal with console browsers that are available on PS3, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, and as with most websites, the experience given on these consoles is by no means ideal.  Nintendo DSi just released their own Facebook integration complete with photo album options using the system’s cameras.

Future State: At this year’s E3, all three console manufacturers stated their intentions to make Facebook a priority development, but Microsoft was the only one to show the actual integration, live and working, through Xbox Live.

Marketing Potential: This opens up a great amount of possibilities with game makers and integrating their games with Facebook status updates and feed items.  Publishers and marketers should very quickly get the details on the integrations offered between console and Facebook, as the first games out of the gate will be given much kudos and a rare chance at looking like a cutting edge first-mover.

Twitter 

The popular microblogging platform has seen astounding growth in the past couple of years, with almost 20 million registered users.  The most important thing about Twitter is it’s arguably the hottest social platform right now (that all changes in several months, it always does), so it’s important to get ahead of this one.

Current State: Consoles don’t have any Twitter integrations except for the site being available through console browsers.  A number of video game social networks, including Raptr and GamerDNA, integrate Twitter as well, but most video game publishers use Twitter to market current video game releases.

Future State: E3 2009 was as big for Twitter as it was for Facebook, with all three console makers announcing Twitter integration as part of future software updates.  The only one to show it in action was again Microsoft, with an Xbox 360 integration that must have had those video game social networks quaking in their boots.

Marketing Potential: Twitter is as hot as they come right now, and we are just waiting for a smart publisher to take advantage of the microblogging platform from within their game.  Imagine a game character tweeting from inside the virtual world, and that tweet then spawning other tweets and retweets.  You’ll go mad by the incessant tweeting!

Netflix and Movies

Not quite a social network, but almost as important as one, the movie-delivery service has been making strides into digital distribution in some major ways.

Current State: Xbox 360 is the only platform to have Netflix streaming enabled for members.  The catch is you need both an Xbox Live account and a Netflix account, and the selection is relatively small, but it’s still lightyears ahead of the other competitors.

Future State: Xbox 360 is continuing the push with an upcoming update that will allow users to queue up their favorite movies from the console (currently, you need to use the website) and watch movies at the same time with other members.  Microsoft’s machine will also look to stream 1080p resolution movies later this year at a premium price.

As for Sony, they have a robust selection of rental and downloadable movies through the PlayStation Store, and it’s only a matter of time before the oft-rumored Netflix integration comes to pass.  The PlayStation web browser also allows Hulu and other flash-enabled movie sites to load.  And Nintendo?  Well, it has YouTube.

Marketing Potential: With a number of video games turning into movies of their own (Halo, for example), video game marketers and publishers can look to creating short films and movies based on their IP, but also scheduling group showings through these consoles to further engage the fanbase.

Xbox Live

Xbox Live is home to almost 20 million paying customers (with membership averaging $50 per year), and can be considered the first-ever truly successful console-based social network.

Current State: Members can chat, play games and message each other, with much of the value from the Xbox Live membership coming in the form of competitive and cooperative gameplay.

Future State: Many rumors abound that the next Xbox 360 console won’t actually be a console, but instead a way to move gamers fully into the Xbox Live system.  In the near term, expect the integrations mentioned earlier (plus Last.fm) to make Xbox a significant player in the future of social.

Marketing Potential: Xbox Live offers marketers and publishers a captive audience, fully dedicated to the system they’re on (it’s the only true social network that has millions of paying subscribers).  Games like 1 vs. 100 are completely ad-supported and loop in the user and their avatar in ways we hadn’t seen before, giving corporate sponsors a lot of love in the process.  1 vs. 100 is just a hint of what’s to come (and the subject of next week’s exclusive [a]list feature).

PlayStation Home

PlayStation Home and PlayStation Network are free with every PS3 purchase, with no yearly fee attached to either.  PlayStation Home tries to create a Second Life-style virtual world for gamers to explore, and is considered the centerpiece of Sony’s future social strategy.

Current State: PlayStation Home has been met with a mixed response, but anything that’s free for gamers can’t be al bad, right?  Home has a variety of publisher-created spaces (including several from Sony and EA), each with mini games and items to win and use.  Game integrations have been few, but when they happen, they show Home’s true potential in spurring game purchases (i.e. play this game and get a new game level playable in Home).

Future State: PlayStation Home recently concluded an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) called Xi, in which players were taken behind the scenes to the Home underground.  Think of the Matrix, but without the cool action scenes.  Marketers and publishers should take a look at the opportunities afforded them in creating these Home spaces, as you have the early adopter in full force right now, but we’d love to see more engaging ARGs take the place of the fairly static spaces Home currently sees.

And Nintendo Wii?  Hopefully Nintendo will give us more to talk about this year.

As social networks continue to grow, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft understand they have an increased stake in having the core of that social interaction happen on their box.  As marketers and publishers, it is up to us to make sure these integrations aren’t just forfeited to the big three, but can instead be used to bolster the user experience for each of our games.

Hey Yahoo, You Need Less Yahoo

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The new rebranded Yahoo is gaining some speed and is about to relaunch its homepage, but we read some interesting criticism of how the current plan won’t work out as well as just taking a lot more from the outside Internet.

Especially gaming.  Why create it when it’s already there, waiting to be embedded?

From Business Insider:

Social gaming is turning into a real business. Last week, we spoke to Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga. He told us his startup is profitable and we’ve heard his company will reach over $100 million in revenues in 2009. It makes that money when users buy virtual goods that help them along in the games.

Zynga is already more popular than all of Yahoo Games. Its game FarmVille added 12 million users in the last two weeks.  Most of Zynga’s games are played by Facebook users on Facebook. Soon, Facebook plans to get in on all that virtual goods buying by offer its users a “Pay With Facebook” button. If users get used to that form of payments, Facebook could put “Pay With Facebook” buttons on e-commerce sites all over the Web, opening a huge new line of business.  There is no reason Yahoo can’t be doing all this too. It has hundreds of millions of users. MySpace is Facebook’s only real competitor, and it’s faltering.

Here’s what Yahoo needs to do:

–    There should be a more prominent social games module on the Yahoo.com homepage, filled with games created by third-party developers.
–    At the very least, Yahoo should import the Facebook platform as module its homepage and domain and ask for a slice of any “Pay With Facebook” revenues earned there.
–    Start including daily active users (DAU) into its metrics. Aim to beat MySpace.

Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

ESPN And Twitter: Controversy Brewing?

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Yesterday, ESPN commentator Ric Bucher tweeted about how new ESPN guidelines were coming down, prohibiting tweeting unless it serves ESPN.

An uproar ensued, and several critical posts slammed ESPN for trying to rule the open social world with an authoritarian grip.  Rightfully so, as if this were true, it would be a major problem and counterintuitive to the spirit of social media.

So take a look at how ESPN responded.

First of all, they only let a few hours pass before responding quickly and publicly to the Bucher tweet.  Secondly, they chose a very smart medium to respond: Twitter.  Lastly, the response was to the point and clarified the original controversy, and opened up the memo and policy for all to see.

Rather than add fuel to the fire by publicly condemning Bucher or refuting what he was saying, and rather than looking like confused dinosaurs, their short-and-sweet tweet was just the medicine that was needed.

When controversy arises, don’t be afraid to state your case, simply and calmly, with transparency and on the playing field in question.

[more on Mashable]