Data-Driven Content Creation Is Fueling Mobile Success

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Data-driven content creation is what is fueling the success of mobile-first online destinations such as Buzzfeed, Atlantic Media’s Quartz and USA Today’s For the Win.

While often dismissed by legacy publishers as cheap click-bait, these publishers have taken a very different approach from their older colleagues.

The biggest difference today is that data-driven content creation must be optimized for mobile consumption because most engagement on social media these days happens on smartphones, phablets and tablets.

“It’s logical that most social engagement is done on a mobile device, because it’s the device that you always have with you,” says Rebecca Markarian, VP, Social Media at Ayzenberg.
“While most of the deeper engagement happens in the down moments between meetings, before class starts, when you are waiting for the bus but you’ll also see lighter, quicker engagement during busier times of day such as RT’s, likes and reblogs.”

It’s just this kind of focus on the context of how, when and why the content is being consumed as well as why it’s being shared and by whom. This is at the core of data-driven content creation.

To extract this kind of data, content creators need to work closely with engineers and data analysts in a way that legacy publishers never have attempted or even want to, because it means that the user is in charge and the role of the publisher as the tastemaker is diminished.

“BuzzFeed has technology at its core. Its 100+ person tech team has created world-class systems for analytics, advertising, and content management. Engineers are 1st class citizens. Everything is built for mobile devices from the outset. Internet native formats like lists, tweets, pins, animated GIF’s, etc. are treated as equals to older formats like photos, videos, and long form essays. BuzzFeed takes the internet and computer science seriously,” wrote Chris Dixson, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, on his blog around the time it was announced that the firm has invested $50 million in BuzzFeed earlier this year.

This new data-driven approach to content creation is not without its critics, but, if done right, it has nothing to do with “tricking” the user into consuming content or advertising.

Mobile-first publishing often means creating “snack-sized” content optimized for consumption where session times are shorter. That means, for example, creating Vine and animated GIF length videos and articles are between 300 and 400 words long.

However, search-engines and platforms such as Facebook are not yet tuned in with this form of publishing.

Digiday recently highlighted that Facebook will measure click-bait by “how long people spend reading an article away from Facebook,” according to a blog post about the change. That is, if a Facebook user clicks on an article shared in his news feed and spends only seconds reading that article, then Facebook will deem it click-bait.

“If people click on an article and spend time reading it, it suggests they clicked through to something valuable,” Facebook’s blog post says. “If they click through to a link and then come straight back to Facebook, it suggests that they didn’t find something that they wanted.”

These practice stands to hurt publishers that produce short but non-click-bait stories who strongly feel like time spent is hardly the only indicator of “quality,” as the average time spent per visit on Facebook is less than half as long on mobile (5 minutes) than on desktop (13.2 minutes), according to ComScore.

While the debate about what is “quality” content across platforms will likely continue for as long as new disruptive technologies will be introduced, there is one metric that no one can argue with and that is conversions. For publishers, that could mean micro-transactions for unlocking content and in-app purchases. For advertisers it means being able to better target advertising towards users with purchase intent and turns them into paying customers.

“As consumers and sites improve at purchasing with mobile and big players like iPhone announce more initiatives like recently announced Apple Pay, there will be increasing focus on conversion metrics as well.  Optimizing every experience to make purchasing over mobile quick and easy will be critical to keeping consumer business,” says Rebecca Markarian, VP of Social Media at Ayzenberg.

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Mobile Gaming’s Vast Potential

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Mobile gaming has transformed the demographic reach of games, and indeed the very image of games to the public at large. Games are no longer the unusual pastime of a few, but something nearly everyone enjoys. Or if they don’t, they know someone who does. Yet mobile games are still barely scratching the surface of what’s possible, in terms of game play, audience, and monetization. That’s why there’s still a huge push among publishers, investors, and startups to create new mobile games — they all realize the potential of mobile gaming, and gaming in general, is still enormous.

The latest figures from the ESA bear this out, if you look at them correctly: Approximately one-third of Americans age 13 and older play video games on their smart phones, tablets, and portable gaming devices, according to new research released today by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). That’s even more impressive when you realize that not all Americans have smartphones or tablets — Nielsen’s survey earlier this year showed about 65 percent of Americans have a smartphone. Worldwide, of course, it’s a much lower percentage. Even the poorest countries are rapidly adopting smartphones, though, as new lower cost smartphones bid to add another billion users to the smartphone base of 1.5 billion.

The rapid growth of smartphones is not a bad thing for current game platforms — it’s additive. Two-thirds of mobile gamers say playing mobile games has not negatively impacted the amount of time they spend on other game devices, such as video game consoles or PCs. Fifty-four percent of mobile gamers say their overall play time has remained steady across devices, while 11 percent are spending more time on other electronics.

“The tremendous growth of mobile gameplay underscores the dynamic and evolving nature of the video game industry,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of ESA. “Consumers want the ability to play anywhere. Our industry continues to anticipate and meet consumers’ expectations by finding new ways to engage users across multiple platforms.”

Mobile platforms are indeed broadening the audience of gamers, according to the ESA study: 22 percent of mobile gamers say they either never played games, or stopped playing before resuming on mobile devices. A total of 46 percent of mobile gamers say they previously played video games occasionally, but were not regular gamers before playing on mobile devices.

The study, conducted among a U.S. representative sample of 3,264 people age 13 and older, also found some other interesting facts about mobile gaming:

  • Among mobile gamers, the most popular games are puzzle (43 percent), card (26 percent), word (20 percent), action (19 percent), and arcade (19 percent).
  • The most popular places to play mobile games: at home (85 percent), in the car (25 percent) and waiting in line (20 percent).
  • Word-of-mouth (50 percent) is the most popular way mobile gamers learn about new games, followed by playing with friends and family (31 percent), and social networking (25 percent).
  • Forty-two percent of mobile gamers purchased a game for a console, PC or handheld because they enjoyed the game’s mobile version.
  • Females (43 percent) are more likely to play games every day on their principal mobile device than males (36 percent).

Yet mobile games are still in their infancy, if you look at the history of games on other platforms. Usually the first games on a platform are simple ones, and over time we see more complex games being introduced — and those games produce greater engagement, and often much greater revenue potential.

Let’s look at paper. Board games date back to ancient Egypt, and while chess and go are certainly deep games, the truly popular board games that came out in the 20th Century were stuck at the level of Monopoly for decades, and only gradually became richer and more interesting. Now there’s a thriving group of strategically deep boardgames (from Settlers of Catan on up, from an array of publishers) that you can play for hours, with every possible genre and skill level presented in fantastically beautiful packaging.

Card games have gone from poker and bridge to Magic: The Gathering, which is now bigger and better than ever (and producing great revenues, too). Roleplaying, the genre born in 1974 with Dungeons & Dragons (derived from miniatures games), has gone from a simple few rules in a slim booklet to massive 400 page tomes with comprehensive rules for magic and melee and all sorts of genres and settings. Even miniatures have advanced, from the elegant simplicity of H.G. Wells’ Little Wars to the hybrid wonders of Golem Arcana.

With electronic games, PC and console games have gone from simple side-scrolling platformers and basic dungeon-crawling to elaborate 3D worlds with immense freedom. By the 1990’s PC and console games were expanding into much greater depth and a wider range of genres and styles of game, following the increasing power of the hardware.

Mobile is still in its early days, where the revenues are dominated by simple puzzle and action games, as we can see from the ESA numbers. Yes, we’re starting to see games with more depth, as Clash of Clans replaces Angry Birds and similar games begin to take up more of a position in the top-grossing charts.

Many game companies are setting their sights on deeper gameplay for mobile, seeing the much greater engagement numbers that deeper games have — and the much higher monetization rates. Why settle for two percent of your players paying you something, when you can dream of 20 percent

Yes, the deeper the game is, the greater the tendency for the audience to narrow. It’s especially true if the game has a complex interface. Yet mobile games have already had a great impact on games on any platform, by demonstrating the value of making games easy and approachable and getting you into the fun quickly. The 20-minute cinematic intro and the half hour tutorial are relics of gaming’s past now.

Mobile games hold out the tantalizing possibility of being able to create greater engagement with an audience that’s an order of magnitude larger than the console audience. No game has really demonstrated that yet, with the possible exception of Minecraft. Yet Minecraft is not a game that depends on virtual item sales, so its success is not directly applicable here.

We need to re-invent popular game genres like sports and first-person shooters and RPGs and MOBAs for mobile platforms. More than that, we need to invent new genres of games that take advantage of all the myriad capabilities found in smartphones — and that take advantage of the deeply personal and ubiquitous nature of the smartphone. Never before have so many people spent so much time with a great gameplaying device. The current mobile game market is educating the world that games an be pretty cool, and fun, and not difficult to start playing. It’s up to the game industry to build on that foundation by creating mobile games that can create deep engagement with a broad audience.

There are exciting efforts in this direction under way in multiple places, and no doubt there are amazing games still to be discovered amidst the thriving indie development community. Yes, making money from a mobile game is hard, but the potential reward for success is large and growing even though the odds of getting there may be shrinking.

It’s a thrilling time to be in the game industry at all levels — let creativity fill your sails as you head out into the vast blue ocean of the marketplace that is taking shape.

This Week In People: September 26

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Here are some of the top personnel moves in marketing last week. Our congratulations to these people taking on new challenges!

  • Snapchat has hired top Google communications and government relations exec Jill Hazelbaker, as the startup continues its rapid expansion. Find out more details here.
  • BuzzFeed has appointed Andrew Gauthier to executive producer of BuzzFeed Video, overseeing all shortform and episodic video content for the fast-growing Internet media company. Find out more details here.
  • Twitter has named Kirstine Stewart VP of North American Media Partnerships, expanding her role from head of media partnerships for Canada to encompass all of North America. Find out more details here.
  • Asian gaming giant Nexon has reassigned Min Kim (former CEO of Nexon America) and Ron Moravek (former head of live operations) to a new division of the company dubbed Nexon XP, dedicated to creating Western-focused content. Find out more details here.
  • The National Football League has picked a former PepsiCo marketer as its new chief marketing officer. Dawn Hudson comes to the league directly from The Parthenon Group, a Boston-based strategic consulting firm, where she spent the past five years working in the food, beverage and restaurant sectors. Find out more details here.
  • Bill Carr, who has been with Amazon since 1999, most recently as its head of digital music and video, is leaving the company. Find out more details here.

If you have a submission for this weekly feature, send info to pr@ayzenberg.com or fill out our Suggest a Story form.

Some Companies Are Rewarding Views Of Branded Videos

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It’s always nice to see an incentive that ties in with advertising, whether it’s an offer for a discount on a meal during your next visit or a free promotional goodie given during an upcoming stop-in. Now, it appears a number of companies are embracing a new program that rewards users for simply watching its branded videos.

AMC, McDonald’s, Trident and Hollywood studios are working with video platform Klip Rewarded Video to greet consumers with branded videos, providing a number of achievements to unlock based simply upon their viewing habits.

The platform uses an “achievement moments in apps” system, which presents customers with media content as bonus rewards, which can also tie-in virtual currency to be used on items, as well as special digital coupons.

“Our research showed that the favorability for a brand with a typical mobile banner ad began to decline with the more people who were exposed to it,” said Brian Wong, CEO of Klip. “We’re trying to send a message to brand that just being in mobile is not sufficient; you may cause a detrimental effect.

“We see an opportunity and responsibility to create a product to increase favorability, which is what we see with Klip rewards,” he continued.

Klip Rewarded Video has come in handy for many companies to reward fans and provide more worthwhile experiences when it comes to branded videos. With it, user engagement has increased, and direct-to-retail consumption has picked up as well, generating actual moments instead of just general impressions.

AMC has already hit the ground running with the program, advertising its fourth season of The Walking Dead, which premieres next month. Once users reach a particular level with the tie-in game Into the Dead, they get the ability to watch a special clip promoting the forthcoming season.

The videos also provide the ability to tie storytelling in. “I really think the tools allow brands to story tell are quite limited,” he said. “The story needs to be oriented around the user experience.”

Hollywood studios have played a big part as well, with unlockable bonus clips from such films as Hercules and The Wolf of Wall Street.

What do you think Would a rewards program such as this make advertising videos much easier to consume

Source: Mobile Marketer

 

Social Media And The Indie Game Developer

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By Keith Andrew

How did you end up here Many of you will have clicked through from [a]listdaily‘s front page. For a large chunk of you, however, you’ll have found yourself digging into this piece thanks to social media.

Almost every writer in this field has become both accustomed to and, in the best cases, positively embraced the propagation of articles via Twitter, Facebook, Reddit et al. Case in point: I can pretty much guarantee that, minutes after this article goes live, everyone from friends and close family through to distant relations and even my milkman will have seen a link to it pop up in their feed before the day is out. It’s both to the benefit of a writer and that of the site it’s hosted on that this article get eyeballs.

Developers are in the same boat. As much as social media has become a vital cog in the wheel for the games press, so too is it an increasingly core element for games developers — and the reason why is essentially identical: gamers use social media just as much as anybody else. For the developers whose lives are just as invested in the major social platforms, it’s been a boon.

“It basically started as a way to waste time while waiting on level data to build while employed at other people’s companies,” the man behind indie hit Thomas Was Alone, Mike Bithell, told GamesIndustry.biz quite candidly. “I found out later that I was annoying the hell out of folks I worked with for tweeting so much. But, hey, it seems to have worked out in the long term.”

Mike Bithell

Indeed, task anyone with citing an indie developer in the UK who is known for having a grip on how best to utilise social media and, chances are, Bithell will come somewhere near the top of the list. Though he notes Thomas Was Alone made its debut “before I had much Twitter visibility”, he’s also acutely aware of the kind of advantages a prominent place on social media afford him. A privilege which, in years gone by, could have been out of his reach.

“I love to be able to speak to my peers and players in a direct way, not relying on third parties – PR or news sites — to filter anything I want to convey to players,” he added. “The day I realized a news announcement made direct on Twitter got more eyeballs than some of the mid tier games sites…that was the day I realized the power and opportunity Twitter holds for me.”

Despite Bithell’s enthusiasm for direct contact with his fans, there are PR agencies that have utilised social media on behalf of developers to great effect. Natalie Griffith founded PR specialist Press Space in May 2013 after stints at other agencies and 12 years at Blitz Games Studios, establishing the firm’s PR and marketing department in the process. It’s experience she now uses to underline the importance of social media to the studios she works with today.

“For me, social media activity isn’t a bolt-on function where a third party can simply push out pre-defined messages,” opined Griffith. “It’s an organic, reactive process that can only effectively be done by someone heavily involved in the studio and really clear about its strategy and vision, so I only take on social management for another company if I’ve that level of involvement with them.”

Of course, the very fact that Bithell, Griffith and others find it necessary to make the case for social media in games development is because that, without naming names, there are developers aplenty that either use Twitter and other platforms in a perfunctory manner, or simply not at all.

Natalie Griffith

“The main failing I see is not one of tone but one of understanding the strengths of each different channel,” continued Griffith. “I know it can be hard for small teams to fit social media time into the hectic schedules, but there’s really no excuse these days for simply hooking up your Twitter fed to automatically dump every tweet into Facebook. They’re very different beasts and if you’re going to have a Facebook account then use it in a bespoke way.”

Fellow PR guru Stu Taylor of Dead Good Media also notes that many indies take a rather cold approach to their use of social media, failing to take advantage of their independence and, instead, tweeting in a very ‘corporate’ manner. “From an outside perspective, it might be a case of thinking that’s how they should do it, because the big corporations tend to be very dry and robotic so as not to upset share holders or end up sparking a social media drubbing,” concluded Taylor, noting that even active social media studios sometimes fail to understand how to best measure its impact. “I still remember a developer years ago being obsessed with Facebook ‘likes’ and judging the success of our PR campaign based on how many more likes they received on their game page every time we put out a press release. The fact that these were two wildly different things and audiences was clearly not of interest to them.”

One thing Taylor, Griffith and Bithell all expound is a sense of honesty. There is of course a danger of a developer revealing too much about their personal life – or simply boring their audiences with status updates focusing on what ready meal they’re eating for dinner that night – but one studio that has made the most of the ability to be open with the audience afforded by social media is Vlambeer. Indeed, right now the Dutch studio is developing its latest release, Nuclear Throne, under the watchful gaze of its fanbase — via regular livestreams on Twitch.

“I think that a very central theme to Vlambeer is to try and be open and transparent about the realities of game development, In that regard, it was almost inevitable that social media would be central to our studio,” Vlambeer’s Chief Executive of Business and Development Rami Ismail told GamesIndustry.biz. “In fact, the first time the name ‘Vlambeer’ was ever used in any official capacity was when we opened our Twitter account. At that point we hadn’t even registered a website or a company.”

To Ismail, being open is an advantage and helps build trust with gamers as it “makes you accountable, and that means you don’t get to get away quite as easily with delays and nonsense.” He continued, “There’s an inherent responsibility to having a podium, and I think making sure that people are aware of the implications of their words is not too much to ask of those that benefit from their social media. As an example, I quickly learned not to tweet about how great ‘dropping out of school’ was, because my tweets are also read by people in countries in which education is literally the only thing that separates kids from a life of homelessness and poverty.”

Rami Ismail

The other ‘risk’ is that the games press, ever eager for a quick story, can pick up on seemingly innocent tweets and spin them into some sort of declaration. Bithell notes that the fact that his tweets have routinely ended up forming the basis of stories on games sites has made him “more conservative and careful in what positions I make public.”

“More than one a buddy has messaged me privately saying ‘ah, so that’s pissed you off, right ‘ in response to a more diplomatic public tweet,” he continued. “I also have to remember the risks of bringing negativity to the feed, I’m in a position to really do damage to other indies if I publicly argue with them, so I try to take any of that sort of thing away from public spaces.”

More serious has been occasions when public spats on Twitter have had a direct impact on a developer’s business. In 2013, a now infamous confrontation on the social network between Fez designer Phil Fish and Marcus Beer of GameTrailers not only resulted in the (temporary) departure of Fish from Twitter, but also the cancellation of his latest project. The recent rise of GamerGate — which, amongst other things, alleges an all too cozy relationship between games developers and journalists — also has the power to taint a developer’s reputation. It’s, perhaps, understandable why many indies simply don’t want to get wrapped up in the world of social media. Negative messages can spread just as quickly as positive ones.

“I am very transparent in my working relationships and disclose early and often,” added Bithell on the subject. “Integrity is very important to me – no one wants to be seen as a jerk. Also, games journalists sort of rock, they are nerds who like games. I’m not going to apologize for chatting with them in a public space.”

“I think there’s no faster way to learn about the implications of your words than to have people respond to your statements,” added Vlambeer’s Ismail in sober fashion. “I guess in that way, social media has been a tremendous source of education to me.”

Social media, then, undoubtedly isn’t 100 percent win-win — the risks of making a foul up in public that can spread across the Internet in quick time are real. Developers who use it fully are always likely to make mistakes – mistakes that, owing to the power of the web, can spread across the world in a matter of minutes. But as Ismail notes, said mistakes can make a developer better at his or her job in the long run. So, if we accept that investing in Twitter and the like is, in the broad scheme of things, to an indie’s advantage, how best can they utilize it

“The best indie accounts for me are the ones that strike a balance between professional and casual,” stated Griffith, “The awesome thing about the indie scene is that people can finally get to see behind the curtain and get to know the personalities and the stories behind the games they love. So sharing that journey with people, the peaks and the troughs, the lessons you’ve learned, as well as the fun non-work stuff that builds up a picture of who you are, will create something that people will really warm to and want to engage with. Bottom line is, it’s about being a genuine and generous person and making sensible judgments about how to engage with people. In the immortal words of Will Wheaton, don’t be a dick.”

Stu Taylor

Taylor of Dead Good Media agrees, claiming that effective use of social media “isn’t rocket science.” He continued, “It does make me smile how people can make a fortune selling social media courses and tuition – fair play to them. I think a lot of it is common sense and just having a basic understanding that the smallest thing can make a big impact, good or bad.”

For indies that are reluctant to embrace social media for whatever reason, the suggestion that using it effectively has not only changed the way the games industry works, but helped form entire studios and games that, without it, may not have existed may be one suggestion many find too radical to swallow. Nevertheless, ask Rami Ismail where Vlambeer would be if the studio didn’t use social media and you get a succinct reply: “Vlambeer would not exist today.”

And his response when questioned as to what he would say to developers unwilling to use social media is equally eloquent. What advice would he give How would he convince them to take advantage of the opportunity We’ll never know. As Ismail puts, quite simply, without social media he’d “have a hard time reaching them.”

Republished from GamesIndustry.biz. Be sure to read GamesIndustry.biz and subscribe to their newsletter to get the latest in game industry news and insights.

Science Inc. Acquires Upsight’s PlayHaven Ad Network

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The fast-moving mobile landscape continues to change with the deal announced today, where Science Inc. is acquiring Upsight’s PlayHaven Ad Network. Science Inc. bills itself as “a disruptive media, marketing and brand building company” located in Santa Monica, while Upsight is “a leading enterprise analytics and marketing platform” for mobile apps. The deal involves an undisclosed amount of money, and the PlayHaven Ad Network personnel will remain in San Francisco to form the nucleus of a new San Francisco branch for Science, Inc.

PlayHaven is one of the top mobile game ad networks, with a span of more than 18,000 games, 245 million monthly active users, and more than 5.7 billion monthly sessions. Lauded among brands and advertisers as a transparent ad network with premier game publishers, PlayHaven counts Gaia Online, Phoenix Age (now Kabam) and Glu Games Inc. (creators of the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game) among its clients. Science will immediately merge Chirp Ads, its mobile marketing unit, into PlayHaven. The combined company, which will take the PlayHaven name, will help mobile-focused businesses and developers acquire and monetize users with ads.

Jason Rapp, Science Inc.

“The PlayHaven Ad Network has a reputation for its high-quality user base and exceptional customer service. Science has a proven track record of building world-class digital marketing firms and is the right team to carry that flag and continue growing the business,” said Andy Yang, CEO of Upsight. “With complete focus on our SaaS business, Upsight will aggressively invest and expand into new verticals and quickly launch new analytics and marketing products that help our customers bridge the gap between insight and action.”

The deal is an interesting one from an industry perspective, showing several trends converging to make this transaction important both for the companies involved and for how it highlights what’s happening in mobile marketing, analytics and advertising. Advertising on mobile platforms is still in its infancy, at least when you look at the relatively small amount of advertising and marketing dollars flowing into mobile platforms relative to the immense number of people (and minutes) engaging with mobile platforms every day.

Mobile developers and publishers are presented with an increasing array of ad networks, analytics, marketing tools and options that can be overwhelming even to experienced marketers. For small developers, many of whom have little to no knowledge of marketing or sales, it’s a vast ocean of uncertainty with dangerous weather and the possibility of monsters, but also the lure of great riches. Getting the monetization correct on mobile title can increase revenue by an order of magnitude or more, but finding that path requires a skilled navigator. Businesses like Upsight and Science are thriving because they offer help in setting a course for mobile products towards greater revenue.

The [a]listdaily spoke with Jason Rapp, managing director at Science Inc., and Josh Williams, chairman and CTO of Upsight, about the deal and what it means for both companies.

“We were looking for a top-quality, fully transparent mobile ad product with a list of the highest-quality publishers, so we were very impressed with the PlayHaven Network,” said Rapp. “We really liked it because they’ve got SDK integration into a high-quality group of publishers, and these publishers rely on them for monetization. We are bullish on the mobile game market and believe that, through our sales capabilities at the Science level and through our product development capabilities we can continue to help the PlayHaven business grow, adding new advertising products, new units, and expanding their publishing network.”

The basic issue confronting mobile advertising is that mismatch between time spent on mobile and ad dollars spent on mobile. Can Science, Inc. find a way to close that gap, and will the PlayHaven Ad Network help to do that “That’s the perfect question, because we look at that trend a lot,” said Rapp. “It’s up to us as product developers to innovate and think about ad units that perform well and that are engaged in by consumers. They need to monetize for publishers and the engagement converts into business needs of the advertiser. That dynamic that we see supports our investment thesis. We’ve seen that same dynamic in the gap between time spent with media and advertising share from the desktop-based consumer Internet versus television and other media, and that gap has narrowed dramatically. The evolution of advertising businesses on new media follows a pattern where the consumer leads the way. That gap will close on mobile, it will close in part because it’s an inefficiency in the market, and it will also close due to product improvements.”

“PlayHaven will continue to operate as its own unit,” said Rapp. “All the team is going over, we’ll start making additions to the team. First and foremost, it’s build that core business and improve on it. Science Inc has a set of resources on the sales side, we call it Science Growth Labs, essentially a sales and marketing organizations that looks across all of the different solutions that Science has created. They look at our YouTube, Pinterest and Vine marketing, and in this case what PlayHaven can offer, and as they talk to brands they can think broadly about solutions for them and potentially bring in more advertisers for the PlayHaven Network.”

“Similarly, as a mobile publisher we have some insights there and can potentially help bring more publishers into the network,” Rapp continued. “And we have a set of companies that are trying to attract consumers, and it’s possible we can bring more business into the PlayHaven Network that way. All that will be nice if we can do it, but when we buy an asset as sizable as PlayHaven our first consideration is that they have the resources to grow and can continue on their path to success.”

For Upsight, the deal had two major strategic drivers behind it. “The primary drivers for us are focus and the other that is also important to us is that we remain neutral in this space,” said Williams. “We wanted to make sure we can help our customers as they deploy ads across any ad network and as they publish ads from any ad network. That will certainly include PlayHaven going forward, as its one of the top networks in this space. It’s really focus and neutrality on our side, and we have more resources now to continue to invest in our stat platform, which is really exciting.”

Josh Williams, Upsight

“Part of the reason developers come to Upsight is we not only help them understand their users, but also centralize some services,” continued Williams. “There are dozens of SDKs that app developers need to instrument and include, dozens of services and APIs they need to figure out how to work together with their mobile business. That’s another problem we help solve for folks. By combining analytics and marketing tools and simplifying how you can work with ad networks, we really help people operate their mobile business much more easily. That will be an important area of continued focus for us after this sale.”

While Science and Upsight are both pleased with the deal, neither company is relaxing. “It’s a complicated market that moves really quickly,” said Williams. “What we find more and more is that customers are demanding more and more sophisticated solutions, and simultaneously demanding solutions that are more centralized, working with fewer providers. That’s why we we want to focus on making our data platform even stronger.”

Williams cited Upsight’s Data Mine tool as a key factor for the company. “We continue to enhance products like Data Mine, which is a really differentiated tool for us, no one else in the analytics or marketing automation space has something like it. You can run a query on all your raw data to understand your user behavior really deeply in a way you just can’t get through reports and charts. It’s the first solution that combines analytics with business intelligence, along with marketing tools and marketing automation capabilities.”

 

Sharing Life On YouTube And Working With Brands With ‘The Nive Nulls’

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The Nive Nulls are a young and creative YouTube family with over 165k subscribers (or Internet family members, as they like to say) who follow the family in each vlog, watching the Nive-Null children grow from wee little babies to toddler-aged kiddos. Major landmarks of their lives make it to their YouTube channel, from the birth of a new child to moving from Kansas City to Los Angeles to follow their dreams.

[a]listdaily spoke with Austin Null, one-fourth of the Nive-Null family to talk about what inspired them to throw themselves into vlogging, making a living on YouTube, and advice for brands on how to leverage YouTube effectively. The Nive Nulls have previously worked with such brands as Listerine, NBC, Pepsi, Audible, the NFL, MTV, Naturebox, Ford, and Hulu as well as being part of the ION community, a growing network of online trendsetters. Find out more about The Nive Nulls by checking out their YouTube channel here.

What inspired you to share your family’s life on YouTube?

Austin Null: We started watching the first family of YouTube, the Shaytards. We started watching them a little over 4 years ago and we were like “we should do that!” and just started making videos– and we kept making videos– and here we are 4 years later.

What do you think your kids will think about the videos when they watch them when they’re older?

Austin Null: I think they’ll like them. I think they already do, though. My daughter is two and ever since she was born, she’s been in videos. She’s at the point now where she’ll ask “I want to watch baby Audri!” and she’ll go back and watch her when she was a baby. It’s also nice just to watch our timeline as parents. We like to go back and see the older videos and see what the kids were like when they were younger or what we were doing at certain times. So we can see what things were like when we aren’t able to necessarily remember it.

What social platform do you feel is most important to you in the future?

Austin Null: For us at least, for the kind of videos we make and who our audience is, YouTube is the most important. The other ones are like extra complimentary things. Me tweeting people doesn’t enhance the business per se, but it definitely enhances the community aspect, which we’re really big on. I like Twitter because it’s so easy to communicate with people, but I like Instagram because it’s another form of entertainment in a way, by creating a picture or a full video. I also like Vine a lot. It’s something I’m still trying to get used to, consistent at and good at, but I think Vine is actually really cool because it’s a way of creating different content, maybe different from the YouTube channel.

How do you introduce branded content to your audience?

Austin Null: We’re really open and honest with them. We’ll just straight up tell them that we’re going to work with this brand. We don’t try to hide the fact that it’s a brand deal in the integration. We’ll just straight up tell them. Like right now, we’re doing a 5-part video series with Listerine where we’re uploading a video every week on our channel. On our normal vlogs, we’ll tell them: “Tomorrow’s going to be a video that we’re doing with Listerine.” We’re just really open with them and for the most part, they’re open to it as long as the content is really cool.

What can brands learn from YouTube creators, as far as communicating with the YouTube audience?

Austin Null: Nowadays, with the younger demographic or millennials, you can’t just talk at people. You have to reach them on their level. A lot of brands will come in with all these talking points and just go on and on, paragraph after paragraph. I’m just like, I can make this work, but I have to talk how I normally talk and get the point across in a way that people are used to seeing. I think it’s hard for brands because this whole YouTube thing is kind of new, but I am hoping that they’ll learn to let [YouTubers] have free reign. We know what our audience likes. I’ve done a ton of brand deals and I know which ones the audience did not like and it’s because it was kind of forced around. When we get the ability to make our own, I get emails back and they’re like “Oh man, yeah, the response was really good on that! Everyone was checking out the linked video we were talking about.” For the most part, YouTubers know exactly what they’re doing and how to communicate and it’s not in the traditional form.

What do you like about working with brands?

Austin Null: When it goes well, I like that they offer promotions. It’s not really baked in as much, and it would be nice to do in a sense where we make a video, but they have a million followers on Twitter and a million Facebook likes.

It’s nice to do one-off shoutouts, but it’s nice when the brand is willing to work with you to create content that stands alone, which is what we did with this Listerine deal. It was pretty different that what we’ve normal done, but we did 5 videos with them and they had a whole team come to our house and we shot 5 videos in a day. Now it’s this whole series and it still has our feel a little bit and our personality, but it also stands out. It looks good for us and it’s also something that the brand can be like “Hey, look at this cool project we’re creating on YouTube!”

Whenever they’re willing to put a lot of effort into it and not just be like “do a shoutout,” which… it can work, I just don’t think it’s as effective.

What’s in the future for The Nive Nulls?

Austin Null: Oh man, I don’t know! I guess we’re just going to keep making videos. I kind of want to do some things and just branch out. I mean, we’ll always be doing the family vlog stuff but I’d like to be doing more, I guess you could say… acting. But I don’t know if I would say acting. I just want to do more creative [things]. Like yesterday we did a little video for ABC where we did this little skit to promote a new show. I want to create content that can stand alone and it’s not necessarily the vlog, but we’ll show our personalities.

 

Here’s a taste of some of the creative ways The Nive Nulls have worked with brands in partnership to create content:

Mountain Dew And Doritos Fuel Up For ‘Call of Duty’

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It’s another year, and another marketing program between Activision and Mountain Dew and Doritos. The “Fuel Up for Battle” promotion, which kicks off Oct. 6, will allow gamers in select markets around the world will have the opportunity to customize their Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare multiplayer gaming experience by accessing exclusive (until Feb. 15, 2015) in-game gear through the new in-game Supply Drops reward system.

American gamers can collect codes from specially marked packages of Dew and Doritos products and enter them online at www.DewandDoritos.com to enhance their gaming experience and create a unique identity for their advanced soldier by unlocking exclusive Dew and Doritos in-game gear. Fans can customize their character with accessories such as an exoskeleton, heavy vest kit, helmets, goggles, boots and more. Also making a comeback is the ability to unlock double XP and rapid supply rewards. Every code entered from Dew and Doritos packages unlocks Call of Duty in-game rewards and each code entered will also provide a chance to win an Xbox One console.

Mountain Dew has something old and something new for its COD branded drinks this year with Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Cherry and Mountain Dew Game Fuel Lemonade for a limited time only. Both products will hit shelves in the U.S., beginning October 6, along with new 3.375 oz. specially marked bags of Doritos Nacho Cheese, Doritos Cool Ranch, Doritos Spicy Nacho or Doritos Dinamita Chile Limon flavored chips. Greg Herman, senior brand manager at Mountain Dew, talks about the new promotions in this exclusive interview.

What do you feel differentiates Call of Duty from any other game franchise out there?

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the latest example of the franchise’s ability to produce compelling material for gamers, with innovations like the new ‘Supply Drops’ reward systems. We admire the way they continue to push the envelope and give gamers new, unique experiences over and over again.

How has this PepsiCo program grown over the years with the Call of Duty franchise?

The Mountain Dew and Doritos brands have a long-standing legacy of partnerships and promotions around blockbuster video games, which have delivered some of the highest levels of consumer engagement — our programs with the Call of Duty franchise have been no exception.

What have you learned from consumers from past promotions that has influenced this year’s campaign?

Mountain Dew’s and Doritos’ integrated gaming promotions have proven successful year-over-year. Through our previous campaigns, we’ve found that when our products bring the gaming community exclusive experiences that add to the enjoyment of the game, it’s really well received so, this year we’re excited to offer unique access to in-game gear through codes on our products through the ‘Fuel Up for Battle’ promotion.

How do you go about choosing which limited edition flavors to introduce?

We tapped into flavor trends to create a great tasting lemonade-flavored Mountain Dew Game Fuel for our fans. We’ve never had a lemonade flavor before, and we feel really good that it’s something our fans will enjoy.

What has the new franchise, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, opened up for this promotion with the Supply Drops?

This year’s partnership with Activision provides gamers with exclusive access to in-game gear, double XP and rapid supply to take the gaming experience to the next level. Mountain Dew and Doritos fans will have a chance to access these coveted advantages and be able to customize their gaming experience like never before.

How have you seen in-game rewards connect consumers with your brands?

When our products help reward gamers in-game, we’ve found that they connect with our brands at a whole new level. Our fans can customize their gaming experience, and unlike a traditional sweepstakes, every code collected from a DEW or Doritos product unlocks rewards that provide tremendous value to our fans, including in-game gear, double XP, rapid supply and a chance to win an Xbox One Entertainment System.

Can you talk about the commercial and themes you’re exploring with this campaign (In the past you’ve had humorous commercials with celebrity directors for this campaign.)

There will be a ‘Fuel Up for Battle’ commercial that will air in the fall, but at this time, it’s too early to discuss the specifics.

Can you talk about the viral aspect of your campaign?

We’re always looking to build upon the previous year’s success and we feel the way that our products can reward gamers with in-game gear through supply drops will resonate with their always-on aim to level-up.

How many bottles and packages of chips will be part of this program and how long will they be in stores approximately after launching Oct 6?

The DEW and Doritos products will be available nationwide and in select markets around the world for a limited time through the end of 2014.

In the past you’ve had events where fans could win an experience like playing COD at Cowboys Stadium. How has that aspect of the program evolved?

Every DEW and Doritos gaming promotion is different, and we are constantly evolving our programs to engage with our consumers in different ways. This year, we are excited to offer our fans exclusive access to in-game gear rewards to customize their gaming experience.

How many Xbox Ones will you be giving away?

We will give away one Xbox One entertainment system per day throughout the duration of the promotion.

GamesBeat 2014 Revelations

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The GamesBeat 2015 conference in San Francisco last week was an all-star event, with plenty of interesting speakers providing information, insights and opinions about the current state of the game industry and where it’s headed. While Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat said the theme of the conference was Total World Domination, most speakers seemed to set their sights a little lower — though perhaps not by much.

David Helgason, CEO of Unity, was asked how long Supercell could sustain Clash of Clans as the #1 app in the App Store. “As a friend of all these people I wish them luck,” Helgason said, half-joking, “As an industry person I hope they drop out like a fly. It’s better if things mix up a bit.” Helgason went on to explain that’s he’s hoping for more variation in the top ten list, not that he wanted to see his friends at Supercell fall on hard times.

Michael Pachter was interviewed by Geoff Keighley, in a last-minute substitution for Peter Molyneux who was unable to make it out from England for the show. When asked about the Mojang acquisition by Microsoft, Pachter said “If you have a company for sale, it’s a good time to be you.” Pachter’s not surprised by the deal, given that Minecraft has been downloaded over 100 million times. “It generates a tremendous amount of interest and eyeballs, according to MS press release the most successful PC game of all time,” Pachter noted. Ultimately, he feels, competitive pressure was the deciding factor. “I think they are very concerned about being behind Sony,” Pachter said.

Michael Pachter, Wedbush Securities managing director

Pachter feels that while Microsoft has stated its intent to keep Minecraft going on all platforms, eventually we’ll see special content for Minecraft that only appears on Microsoft platforms. Will Microsoft’s Minecraft offer a subscription service ” I don’t think Microsoft is in this to exploit the Minecraft player and extract more value, so no,” Pachter said. “I think Microsoft is really all about promoting its Xbox division, and smartphones and tablets.”

Pachter was very surprised by Destiny’s poor ratings. “I was shocked at the Metacritic average of 75, if you look at Bungie’s history they have only gotten below a 92 once. It seemed to me this game couldn’t possibly get below high eighties, and yet a 78 is about the best they can hope for. That’s not good enough to support a recurring franchise, they’re going to have to step it up next time. I’m sure they are going to get it right.”

The talk turned to the holidays, and Pachter had some advice. “If you are a gamer and you haven’t bought a next-gen console yet, this is going to be the best holiday ever,” Pachter said. “I will not tell you what Microsoft said to me last week, other than to say there is a holiday promotion coming. I will tell you last week Sony asked me what ‘Do you know what Microsoft’s promotion is ‘ Of course I wouldn’t tell them, but they will figure that out. The best thing that can happen for gamers is these guys competing for your dollars and trying to sell you stuff at ever decreasing prices. Last week you could get a free piece of software with the Madden bundle, that was $120 worth of free software with a $399 console. You will see something like that this fall from both of them.”

EA Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, in a conversation with Dean Takahashi, had some interesting thoughts on the state of the industry. “One of the things I found kind of distressing is a lot of folks, when they look at mobile, PC, console, they want to regard it as “mobile versus console.” A couple of folks on this stage have outlined the thesis that in a handful of years we’re going to see tablets with CPUs and GPUs every bit as powerful as the current generation of consoles. You’ll be able to put the video from your tablet out to a big screen TV and use your tablet or smartphone as a controller, and then ipso facto it’s the end of console as we know it. I think about that and say, no, that’s just another console. It proves the point. What a console means to me is it’s about playing a great rich game on the biggest and best screen in my household, where I can sit down on the couch and focus on that.”

John Riccitiello

Veteran game investor Rick Thompson of Signia Venture Partners, who has seen his game investments reap more than $6 billion in exits (most recently, FunPlus sold for close to $1 billion in China), gave advice to would-be game entrepreneurs. “My answer to that has changed over the years,” Thompson said, explaining that he used to try to encourage people to get into the gaming business. “Now when people ask me if they should start up a new games company or something else, my answer is always “something else.” The world has changed. The opportunistic days of free users and easy money is long past us. I’m glad to see this maturation take place. The people we are looking for are the ones who are born to build games, who really enjoy games, who really understand their users and are building games that they want to play.”

Venture capitalist and veteran game investor Tim Chang of Mayfield Venture Partners addressed the issue of finding the funding to create games. “I think it’s better than ever because it’s been democratized,” Chang said. “You’ve got Kickstarter, you’ve got IndieGoGo…. there’s so many ways to bring your product to market now and get funding in a variety of ways. As production costs come down, you can launch more quickly. That part is better than ever. Don’t assume that VC is your only path or even the best path for what you’re trying to do. I think Mojang or even Supercell did well because they didn’t take venture capital.”

Amazon’s VP of Games Mike Frazzini talked about the company’s goals for itself and the gaming industry. “Amazon’s vision is to be the Earth’s most customer centric company,” Frazzini said. “We consider content creators a very important set of customers for Amazon. We think very deeply around those customer experiences and what we can create.” When asked about how they design products or new initiatives, Frazzini had a simple answer. “The very first thing we do is we write a press release, which is the thinking part of it… what is the problem we’re solving, or the solution that we’re going extend to customers in very, very specific terms,” Frazzini explained. “When you get that press release to a point where you feel you’ve got something exciting on your hands, then you move forward.”

 

Images courtesy VentureBeat

Take Buzzfeed’s Cue: ‘If It’s Not Mobile, It Won’t Be Shared’

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“Mobile is truly the biggest opportunity in advertising right now. Sorry, but nothing else even comes close,” said Bionic Adversiting System’s Chris O’Hara in a recent column on AdExchanger.

O’Hara and similar voices are echoing what fast-growing media companies like VICE and Buzzfeed have known for some time now. Mobile is not just the fastest-growing, most exciting place to be in advertising right now, but it’s where the hugest opportunities are.

“We see most social traffic now from mobile, so if your site doesn’t work well on mobile, it guarantees that nothing you do will be shared,” said Buzzfeed Founder Jonah Peretti in an interview with Wired.

While mobile consumption of media now trumps all other platforms, last year less than half of Fortune 100 companies even had a mobile-optimized website. It’s time for us marketers to come together with our clients to really embrace this opportunity as an industry. Mobile isn’t just another distribution platform, it is redefinining media and therefore advertising.

In a memo to his staff, Jonah Peretti explained it this way: “We will stay away from anything that requires adopting a legacy business model . . . We are building the defining news and entertainment company for the social, mobile age.”

Ben Huh, founder of viral network Cheezburger had this to say about Buzzfeed’s model:

“If the medium is the message, then the format becomes the message. BuzzFeed is helping to prove the model –media is going through a revolution with billion-dollar opportunities as consumers change their consumption habits.”

These mobile-first media companies are on to something very important that every entertainment marketer should think about as they start putting their plans together for 2015 and beyond. It’s about more than having a mobile website, although that is a good start. It’s about a new way of thinking.

Brands need to look at what kind of content is actually being shared and try to participate in existing conversations. If the brand doesn’t have a credible or relevant reason to do so, it will just end up being ridiculed by users.

With people becoming more cynical towards advertising, advertisers need to provide utility and give them tangible reasons and benefits to engage with their brands. There are still a lot of conflicting opinions about what mobile means and that’s alright because we are debating an actively changing space, but we need to figure this out together.