Brands Compete Through Customer Experience; Top Ads Watched On YouTube

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Marketers are striving for transparency and brand safety in the programmatic world of advertising. According to the World Federation of Advertisers, 49 percent of marketers have adopted whitelists and blacklists of sites where advertising should or should not appear and 68 percent have suspended or intend to suspend investment in ad networks that raise red flags on brand safety.

To assist in this effort, 54 percent of respondents say they have worked with third-party verification companies to monitor the environments where their ads are placed.

Sixty-eight percent of marketing leaders say their company is increasingly competing on the basis of customer experience, according to the fourth annual State of Marketing report from Salesforce Research.

Shifting technology and social media landscapes often make it difficult to keep up with customer expectations, however. On average, marketing leaders today say 34 percent of their budget is spent on channels they didn’t know existed five years ago—and they expect that to reach 40 percent by 2019.

Millennials are almost 40 percent more likely to call out a brand on social media than other generations, according to the Q3 Sprout Social Index. Fifty-six percent of millennials surveyed say they have complained about or called out brands. In addition, 59 percent said they would use it to address an issue with a brand, compared to 51 person who would address the issue with an in-person conversation.

While 65 percent of Gen Z don’t think there’s much they can do about what they read in the news, 79 percent said they would engage with a brand that could help them make a difference, according to a study by Saatchi New York. In-person interviews with 50 members of gen Z between the ages of 10-to-19 and a survey online found that when it comes to social interactions, 70 percent want more time to hang out with friends outside of digital devices.

Publishers are successfully engaging readers through email. Ninety percent of publishing brands had statistically significant increases in unique open rates during the second quarter, according to Cheetah Digital’s Quarterly Benchmark Report for Q2 2017. Year-over-year open and click rates rose for publishers in the reporting period.

YouTube released the 10 most-watched ads for July. At number one, Apple’s The Rock x Siri Dominate the Day spot caught the most attention. Currently sitting at over 14.3 million views, fans enjoyed watching Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s use his iPhone 7 to accomplish whatever life goals he felt like accomplishing at the moment.

Louis Vuitton came in second with its Connected Journeys spot, focusing on its Tambour Horizon connection watch. Rounding out the top five are Geico’s Running of the Bulldogs, Audi’s Driver’s Test (Spiderman: Homecoming) and Driver Versus Fierce Cute Dog by Genesis.

Ads that make the list are determined by an algorithm that factors in organic and paid views, watch time and audience retention.

Sixty-three percent of Instagram users consider themselves to be “fashion-forward,” according to a new study by Dana Rebecca Designs. The brand surveyed 2,000 Instagram users to see how the photo-sharing app impacts purchasing decisions.

The answer? Quite a lot, according to the report’s findings, with 74 percent of millennial respondents saying they have made a fashion or beauty-related purchase after seeing a related post on Instagram. In addition, 29 percent of respondents say they have purchased jewelry or jewelry accessories after seeing the product on Instagram.

Forty-seven percent of retail marketers say their companies struggle to keep up with the latest trends, according to a study by RetailMeNot. While 99 percent of respondents said they want to improve the customer shopping experience, 54 percent say that technology moves too quickly for them to keep up. As mobile commerce continues to rise, 90 percent of retailers believe their companies would benefit from partnering with a company that has mobile marketing experience.

Digitally oriented media owners saw growth of 20 percent in the second quarter this year, according to new data from Pivotal Research. Digital advertising drove a five percent expansion in the US ad market, despite TV being down one percent.

Ten tech firms including Amazon, Google and Expedia increased marketing and advertising spending by a median growth rate of 24 percent in the quarter.

Editor’s Note: This story will be updated daily until Friday, August 25. Have a new report, study or tip? Let us know at editorial@alistdaily.com.

‘Indivisible’ Creators Grow Game’s Fan Base By Using Trust

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Lab Zero Games made a name for itself following the release of a fighting game Skullgirls in 2012. The game was originally developed by Reverge Labs, but when its then publisher Autumn Games was hit with a series of unrelated lawsuits, funding for further development was cut, its development team was laid off and the game was ultimately removed from Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Store.

The original team went on reform as Lab Zero Games, which continued work on content for the PC version, and took part in a charity donation drive during the 2013 Evolution Championship Series (EVO) tournament. That was what helped inspire the company to look to crowdsourcing to help fund development for Skullgirls DLC content. The campaign reached its goal and then some, raising almost $830,000 of its $150,000 goal.

In 2015, Lab Zero announced development of a new game called Indivisible during the Skullgirls panel at the Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Indivisible was presented as an action role-playing game featuring a female protagonist named Ajna, who teams together with multiple characters to battle their way to a warlord to exact revenge.

The game was put on Indiegogo that October with the goal of $1.5 million, and publisher 505 Games promised to fill in the remaining budget if the campaign met or exceeded the goal. A playable prototype was released at the launch of the campaign, and although it took a long time, the game eventually met its funding goal.

A playable version of Indivisible, featuring some of the latest updates, was shown at E3 and Anime Expo this year to help grow the game’s fan base as it continues toward its 2018 release for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Peter Bartholow, CEO at Lab Zero Games, spoke with AListDaily about using crowdfunding as a means of building a fan base, engaging with them and working with a publisher to help grow the audience.

What are the challenges in continuing to promote a game after a successful Indiegogo campaign?

We really like showing our work, so crowdfunding is actually a great fit for our studio. We think it’s incredibly important to keep our backers abreast of the game’s latest developments, show them how we’re spending their money and try to update them with something new every two weeks or so. Hopefully, they’ll also show their friends and get them interested in the game, too. If there’s any particularly challenge with promoting Indivisible over Skullgirls, it’s that there’s so much we can’t show that we want to, otherwise we’d risk spoiling the game.

What led Lab Zero to develop an all new IP instead of spinning off from Skullgirls?

After working on Skullgirls for more than five years, the team was ready to try something different. While we all love fighting games, most of Lab Zero’s staff doesn’t actively play them, so we wanted to try our hand at something that better represented the team’s interests. Indivisible was originally pitched to another publisher, who requested something “like Child of Light.” While that publisher turned it down, we were so happy with the pitch and its potential that we kept shopping it around until 505 Games signed it.

How has Lab Zero worked with 505 Games to promote Indivisible, and how have crowdfunding backers been taking to game projects that include publisher involvement?

I work very closely with 505 Games to promote the game, and we try to make sure they’re aware of what we’re working on should any interesting promotional opportunities arise. The game is more than a year out, so right now most of the promotion is driven by Lab Zero’s social media efforts and campaign updates, but every once in a while something comes up that warrants more attention. For example, we signed anime studio Trigger to produce our animated opening, so we made sure to get 505’s PR involved in promoting that in the anime community. Also, 505 Games didn’t initially plan on having us at E3, but the backer preview build was getting close, so we figured we may as well show it. I’m glad we did, because we ended up winning a few awards. As for other crowdfunded games with publisher involvement, I’m not sure how well I can speak to that, because I believe our situation was unique in that we named 505 in our campaign from the outset. Some campaigns hide the fact that there is publisher involvement only to address it later, but we felt it was important to be honest and direct about 505’s involvement.

Lab Zero has used crowdfunding to develop DLC for Skullgirls. What did you learn from that experience when crowdfunding Indivisible, and do you see it as a kind of way to build and engage with an early fan base?

Crowdfunding is almost entirely about trust. When it comes to trust, I think a lot of crowdfunding campaigns start off on the wrong foot because they’re afraid to treat their backers like adults and try to protect them from the realities of game development. Especially on the financial side of things. While the level of honesty and transparency we strive for can make things more difficult in the short term, we think maintaining that trust is worth it. Especially if you intend to crowdfund again, as we did.

What is your approach toward keeping Indivisible at the top of mind as we get closer to the 2018 release?

We frequently update our backers with progress, showing them new art and animation whenever we can. We do this through streaming, campaign updates and the occasional trailer when there’s a bigger announcement. Soon we’re going to take the next step and give players a build to play with so they can start directly providing feedback on the game. This will be an enhanced version of the build we featured at E3 and Anime Expo. Once it’s out there, it’ll serve as a lasting test bed so we can try out new gameplay changes and get feedback. Eventually we intend to test out new characters and levels. Finally—in what I believe to be a first—the build will not only be delivered on PC, but also the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We’re extremely grateful to Sony and Microsoft for letting us do this.

Have you discussed plans for growing the Indivisible audience beyond the initial backers?

A lot of that ultimately falls on 505’s marketing team, but of course we’ll be working closely with them on that. The game is far enough out now that we’re still planning a lot of that marketing, but because of how often we update our backers, the website will have a huge backlog of behind-the-scenes content to look through and see just how much work went into making Indivisible. I think the Backer Preview should get a fair amount of attention once it’s released, especially as we continue to refine the gameplay with player feedback. The prototype generated a lot of videos back when the game was mere hypothetical, so hopefully the same happens again now that it’s becoming a reality.

Oculus’ Strategy For The Mass Adoption Of VR

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Oculus is well into its “Summer of Rift” campaign, which is comprised of multiple promotions such as a temporary price reduction to $399 for the Oculus Rift headset and Touch controller bundle, free-to-play weekends for select titles and a partnership with Intel and ESL to create a VR esports league featuring the games Echo Arena and The Unspoken. All of this culminates into a major push to bring virtual reality to the mainstream that rests on two critical points: affordable hardware and a broad library of content to support it.

Jason Rubin, vice president of content at Oculus VR, recounts how there was no content available when he joined the company three years ago. The Oculus Rift headset launched with 30 titles 19 months ago, and another 30 titles were added when the Oculus Touch controller came out in December. Now there are currently over 500 titles in the Oculus Store, and 200 of them are for Touch, which has become the fastest growing segment of the market, according to Rubin.

Jason Rubin, VP Content at Oculus VR

“We found that most users who bought Rift before Touch came out went out and bought it, and now they’re pretty much selling at a one-to-one ratio,” said Rubin, discussing the growth of VR. “I think the last few months have really marked a turning point. When we went to GDC, we talked about this being the year of content, and that’s happened between GDC (March) and now.”

Rubin explained how the conversation around VR has changed from what people should look forward to, to what people should looking to buy right now.

“That sounds minor, but it’s actually very important to our ecosystem,” said Rubin. “We have now reached the point where the average consumer can take something home, and we have a wide enough library so that they’ll not only find a few things to like, but find things that they’ll get to like.

Oculus is launching over a title a month this year, building up its backlog of content. Rubin emphasizes how this is an important moment in an ecosystem because it’s the point where the utility and entertainment value of the product outweighs its cost.

“We’re now getting to the point where content made for VR is truly utilizing VR strengths and creating entertainment that’s very different from what anyone else has seen,” Rubin continued. “With the [Marvel Powers United] and other upcoming announcements, you’re going to see bigger IP and bigger development studios and publishers getting into the business now that it’s growing. But we never thought it was going to be instant success for VR—we always knew it was going to take a long time. You can look back at any of our statements, especially Mark Zuckerberg’s statements, [to know] how long it was going to take for VR to become mainstream, but we’re shifting into second gear and third gear is on the horizon. We have a very specific plan that we’ve stuck to—financing great content and bringing down the price point.”

Talking with AListDaily, Rubin discussed the evolution of VR content at Oculus. He said that, although launch games such as Chronos and Edge of Nowhere remain popular, they were largely experimental and didn’t really address why consumers would want VR in their homes.

That changed when Crytek released The Climb in April of last year, which gave users a true sense of tension as they climbed up a mountainside. The Climb has since become the best selling and most demoed game on the Oculus platform.

Things are bound to grow even bigger and better. According to Rubin, the launch of Robo Recall in March marked the second generation of VR games.

“Everything is coming together to make a much better wave of content than the first generation,” said Rubin. “This is normal with a console, so this is exactly how it should be going. The next generation of software is going to be unbelievable.”

The Next Phase Of VR

With the two biggest challenges, price and content, being dealt with, Rubin discussed the next major hurdle for mass adoption of VR.

“The largest hurdles were price and content, but with those things fading into the distance as issues, our biggest challenge is getting people to understand what VR is and why it fits in their lives. Over time, we’re positive that that’s going to work itself out. You work that out by getting as many people into VR as you can, and they become your proselytizers. Anyone who is on the fence—they see the price then see the reaction on Reddit and it becomes an instant buy. When everyone has VR, their friends want to know what it’s like, and when they play it, that becomes another sold person.”

VR will spread by usage, according to Rubin.

“It’s slow at the beginning, but things that are exponential start slowly and then they burst. I think VR is going to go through that process. It took a while to get the first 100,000 people in it, a little longer to get next wave in, and it will eventually get to the point where everybody knows someone who has tried VR and then it will spread quickly. Especially if the price goes down the content keeps getting better. It’s a pretty simple formula for us because the product is so good. If we had something harder to sell, we’d be in a much tougher situation. But we’re in a world where you put it on people’s heads and they say that they want it.”

However, it’s often hard to see ahead with a slow process. In December, analyst company SuperData singled out VR as the “biggest loser” of the holiday season.

As recently as June, Rikard Steiber, president of HTC Viveport and senior vice president of VR, admitted that VR had a marketing problem. It seems like the days when Oculus was featured in Time Magazine are long gone as enthusiasm for the technology has died down, but Rubin believes that this is an unavoidable part of the process.

“We’ve been saying since the beginning that it was going to take a while for VR to become mainstream,” said Rubin. “But there are forces around any new technology that we can’t control.” He then described how, with any technology, there’s a hype curve that’s followed by the trough of disillusionment and the eventual acceptance and mass market appeal. Rubin admitted that the hype phase was over, and now we’re in the disillusionment phase.

“The reality, which we always knew was going to happen, has happened,” Rubin said. “I think that over the next year or two, people are going to come out of that and realize that a lot of people have this and really like it. More people are jumping into this, more game developers are developing for it and more movie studios are getting involved. All of this is happening, and [VR] is not going away. We’re just in the moment where we’ve gone past the hype and can’t ride on that anymore. We’re in reality, and reality is going to take off, and we’re going to be just fine.”

Getting People Into VR

Partnering with Intel and ESL to create the VR Challenger esports league is an important step in getting more audiences used to VR.

“[Consumers] are constantly bombarded with words, advertisements and calls to action,” explained Rubin. “For example, every food has the word ‘extreme’ in front of it, to the point where no one pays any attention to it anymore. In our world, I think the equivalent word is ‘immersion.’ We tell you VR is immersive and bang you over the head with how it takes you to another place, but if you haven’t put it on your head or haven’t seen someone use it, which is still the vast majority of the world, you just ignore that word.

“The beauty of a sports league is that you see people using VR. You see them moving around with the headset on and how into it they are. Then they start to understand why it would be interesting. Instead of seeing a beautiful model in a straight pose or random words thrown out by a well-meaning article writer, they’re watching someone who is incredibly good at what they’re doing and they can picture themselves doing that at home. It’s very important to give people an aspirational reason to pick up VR. That’s also the reason why we have Best Buy demos. Giving people the ability to put on a headset is the number one way to convince them VR is going to work.”

The Global Impact Of ‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’

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PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG/Battlegrounds) is the number one PC game in Japan, number six in the world and according to Newzoo, is attracting players away from other games—while still in early access.

“It’s quite a unique game, even within its genre,” Newzoo senior data analyst Gijs Holleman told AlistDaily. “The gameplay goes much deeper than similar titles [such as H1Z1] by focusing much more on strategy, ultimately boosting the competitiveness, and having a wider diversity of weapons and items. This attracts a lot of players who are looking for a different shooter experience, different from Overwatch and CS:GO for instance—which is where we see that most [Battlegrounds] players originate from.”

Using its new PC Game Tracker, Newzoo found that Battlegrounds was the sixth most-popular game among core PC gamers worldwide in July, with 10.8 percent playing the title. In terms of global impact and the potential of a breakout hit, that’s more than World of Warcraft, GTA V, and Rocket League.

The game was also number six in terms of play time, accounting for four percent of the total time spent on PC games in July. This data is derived from Overwolf’s user base of 12 million PC gaming enthusiasts across 42 countries.

“From its early release in March, the game immediately caught the attention of Twitch creators who grabbed the opportunity to make it a perfect game to stream on their channels,” said Holleman. “This helped [Battlegrounds] to quickly make a name [for itself] among the huge pool of PC enthusiasts and spread among them like wildfire.”

Newzoo found that Battlegrounds is attracting players away from other games, who abandon them in favor of the popular all-out shooter. No game has felt this effect more than Overwatch—of the global players who stopped playing Overwatch in July, 25.2 percent were playing Battlegrounds. This was most pronounced in Japan, Newzoo found, where the figure was 54.7 percent.

Churn from CS:GO was also high with 21.1 percent globally and 31.9 percent in the US. Other genres have been affected too, although not as dramatically. Of the people who stopped playing Minecraft and World of Warcraft in July, 14.2 percent and 19.6 percent were playing Battlegrounds, respectively.

Battlegrounds has sold over four million copies since it entered early access in March. The battle royale is proving fun to play, but just as important in today’s marketplace, it’s fun to watch as well. Within three months of launch, the game became the second most-watched game on Twitch.

In Battlegrounds, 100 players parachute onto an island where they must kill to survive while avoiding death themselves. Heavily inspired by the 2000 film Battle Royale, the game is based on a number of previous mods created by Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene.

The “anything goes” style of gameplay makes each game session unique.

Ikea Re-envisions Its Back-To-School Marketing Strategy

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When the summer season slowly comes to a close, it signals a start for brands to begin conversations with consumers through back-to-school messaging.

Ikea is ramping up its marketing with millennials by hitting college campuses this month with a series of interactive videos promoting the Danish retailer’s products for dorms.

The company considers back-to-college season as a pivotal part of its brand marketing—especially since media consumption among student audiences remains in full flux. Ikea admits that it has become increasingly difficult to engage with the younger generation with traditional paid channels to communicate their proposition.

In an effort to target the demographic—specifically 18-to-24-year-olds—the multinational brand activated an influencer campaign by partnering with pop duo Superfruit’s Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying, and debuted back-to-school ads that doubled as personalized adventures exclusively on Snapchat. The customizable experience enables Snapchat users to shape their own stories by following the influencer of their choice, then controlling and impacting the outcome with the tap of a button.

Ikea curated seven different style collections for its college campaign by intertwining data, technology and content. The motive is to offer insight into user preferences and capture the brand’s range of styles. It was complemented by a sensual 25-minute YouTube video of a woman soothingly describing how the products will give you “head orgasms.”

Kerri Homsher, external communications specialist for Ikea, joined AListDaily to explain how the brand is approaching a re-envisioned marketing strategy.

Kerri Homsher, external communications specialist for Ikea

Why is the back to school and college campaign an important marketing message for Ikea? What is the campaign designed to accomplish?

This year’s campaign aims to showcase how Ikea can support our customers during the moment by being the partner that allows customers to get what they need and express their personal style. For the parents, it’s very emotional. It’s the moment they’ve saved for since their child was born. They are concerned practically. Their focus is making sure their child has what they need to live away from home and be successful. For the students, the insight is still emotional. It’s a bittersweet moment for them as well, but the focus is slightly different. Of course, they still need the practical items, but they’re also wanting to find ways to express themselves. An empty dorm room is more than a space to fill with a bed, a desk and a set of drawers—it’s the first space they truly own. A blank canvas for self-expression. So, there is more of a focus on style. Ikea understands that a home isn’t just the place you live—it’s the foundation for your dreams, goals and aspirations—whatever it may be. With how expensive college already is, affording the necessities should be an exciting support rather than another financial burden.

How are you zeroing in on specific aspects of product marketing for each audience—parents versus students? 

Back to college is a time when many are creating a dream home or space for the first time. Everything today is about understanding the consumer and then providing them with convenience and greater access. Many companies get these insights through traditional research like surveys and focus groups. Ikea goes one step further by doing home visits, both in person and virtually. We want to see real challenges in your living space because we design for solutions. It’s from all of this combined data that we then zero in on specific product suggestions. We have developed a central hub for all things. Additionally, we created a dorm and apartment checklist, which helps students and parents get prepared for college life.

For parents, we know that they’re mainly concerned with ensuring their child has the necessities for life away from home. One thing we’re testing this year to make shopping easier for parents is a bundle button that allows people to add all items in that bundle to the shopping cart. We created product bundles for different areas of the college home, including bedding, bedroom furniture, living spaces, cooking and eating, and common areas.

For students, since we know their focus is more about self-expression, this year we created coordinated styles using Ikea products. To make it even easier, we even have a quiz to help students find their personal style. We also look for opportunities to try something new that will surprise our fans or connect to a trending topic, which is why we launched a mini-series of videos—“Oddly Ikea”—that is a play on the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) genre. These videos focus on products that are relevant to college students and are meant to not only educate the viewer on Ikea products, but also to help them relax.

Why are influencers a critical voice to Ikea’s brand messaging? How do you plan on testing new methods and evolving with influencers? 

In today’s digital media landscape and with how people consume content, we understand the importance of giving people a reason to stop the thumb and engage—and then share. Consumers are much more likely to engage with a brand if they saw a recommendation from a friend, and many look to influencers as trustworthy sources, just like their friends.

We’re always looking for new ways to engage with the audience we’re targeting for back to college. We engaged influencers because it’s a great way for a brand to make a connection with its consumers. Also, we know that the vast majority of students discover new content online by browsing their social feeds rather than through search or direct shares. When it comes to fashion and style, their decisions are often informed by what others will think. On a national level, we utilize influencers to help us tell an authentic story, highlight how people use Ikea products in their homes and reach new audiences that may not think of Ikea first. From a global perspective, we even look to do product collaborations with well-known design influencers.

Why did you decide to launch on Snapchat, considering the platform is not conducive to cultivating influencer activations?

One of the Ikea values is “doing it a different way.” Snapchat gives us both a way to natively engage with the college consumer and show up in a way that we haven’t before with interactive video that allows users to control the narrative. It’s very easy to tap past an ad on the platform, but we’re seeing fans lean in to follow the storyline we’ve presented, all the while seeing what Ikea has to offer.

How is Ikea’s social media strategy evolving? 

We continue to optimize and evolve our social media strategy every year. We learn more about our fans, and build custom audiences to find those that we think will become fans with the right introduction to our brand.

What is the Ikea’s strategy on communicating with digital-first consumers? How do you reach them?

The reality of how people consume media and shop today is digital and we continue to see mobile taking a bigger part across the board and continuing to be an influence—and that’s something we need to be mindful of. We always aim to take a digital and mobile first approach in all of our marketing efforts. It’s a new way of working for us, but we want customers to shop where and how they want so that the interaction with the brand feels seamless. For example, possibly getting to us through social media, but then shopping either in the store or online.

What are your key learnings from previous years? What insights can you share? How has it changed? 

The consumer is smarter than ever, so marketing efforts and product offerings need to be smarter than ever. The students are not necessarily the primary decision makers. It’s a joint decision between parents and students, but we see that the parents still hold the spending power. We’re always looking for insights that drive our consumers.

Over the last few years, we’ve had several learnings. Back-to-college shopping is no longer just about going to the store and picking up what you need. We see researching and shopping beginning as early as April and May, when students start to get acceptance letters. Then, we see the peak in July when many parents and students are actually making the bulk of their purchases. However, we know from previous years that the shopping never actually ends. Customers are shopping on school breaks and throughout the year—so it’s about being mindful of when these consumers are looking, not just where. It’s important to develop creative with specific targets and specific platforms in mind so that the content is more customized. You also need to offer products that can work harder for the consumer. For example, at Ikea we have smart furniture, products with hidden benefits and products that help you live more sustainably at home. Affordability is more important than ever. Our research told us that the overwhelming majority of parents say they expect their children to attend college, but the rising cost of education and burden of college debt is generally perceived to be the biggest limitation to the American dream for future generations.

What kind of targeting is most important for the marketing behind this?

Back to college is a highly competitive space, and brands—both in- and out-of-home furnishings—are offering unique services and multichannel experiences. So, you always need to be doing something that’s going to make people engage, especially during this time of the year. Whether going off to school or staying close to home, these are big family decisions. We target both the parents—whose focus is on affordable, quality solutions—and the student who wants a stylish, fun space. Their mindsets, priorities and how Ikea can support them are different, so we aim to tailor the messages accordingly.

With Spending On In-App Ads Bound To Triple, Brands Get Creative

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As the world turns to mobile for social interaction, research, entertainment, shopping and more, the market for app advertising continues to rise across the globe. Increased demand means a saturated marketplace, so brands are getting creative with how they present in-app advertising to consumers.

In-app advertising is set to triple from $72 billion in 2016 to $201 billion in 2021, according to new forecasts by App Annie. The company expects this growth to be fueled by continued innovation in areas such as augmented reality, mobile payments and artificial intelligence. The global app economy will be worth $6.3 trillion by 2021.

Heinz and Facebook Creative launched an experimental campaign called “Irresistible posts” that used Instagram Stories ads to give away burgers. The two-hour campaign partnered with local restaurants in Sao Paulo, Brazil. When a user saw one of the local-sponsored stories, they could swipe up and claim the photo. Gourmet burgers were then delivered in special, Instagram-post-inspired packaging.

“We decided to turn people’s craving into reality,” Isabella Rizzo, Heinz’ marketing director, explained in a statement. “Irresistible Posts innovate in the way people consume content—by eating it with Heinz.”

Mobile accounts for 51 percent of digital ad spend, according to IAB—a figure that App Annie predicts will increase over the next four years. Global advertiser spend will grow from $13 to $52 per user over the course of the forecast period. This growth is being driven by broad ad monetization in non-game apps, which is set to outperform the overall advertising market with a nearly 21 percent CAGR.

Pinterest is also taking drool-worthy posts and turning them into real-life purchases with buyable pins and native video ads. Buyable pins are free for businesses, who have the option of paying for promotion. More than 75 percent of pins saved to Pinterest come from businesses, according to the site.

For Kong: Skull Island, Legendary Pictures used Promoted Videos on Pinterest. According to a case study, the video ads made men 15 percent more likely to watch the movie in theaters.

“Pinterest is a great place to reach a receptive audience with video,” said Matt Marolda, chief analytics officer for Legendary Entertainment. “The fact that our video ads were the only motion in people’s feeds really provided us with the opportunity to make a major impact.”

Rewarded ads are popular in the world of mobile games, but a recent partnership between Tapjoy and the Line messenger app illustrates the potential of interactive marketing. Tapjoy offers thousands of opt-in, rewarded ads from hundreds of brands and partners such as LEGO, Starbucks, Clorox and Google.

“Video ads have performed exceptionally well on our platform and we foresee them working just as well in a messenger environment,” Shannon Jessup, chief revenue officer of Tapjoy, told AListDaily. “Videos provide a great user experience because they’re simple to engage with and they provide strong entertainment value. Those same characteristics carry over into any app type.”
The Line messaging app is especially popular in Asia-Pactific countries—where mobile apps are being used far more than mobile web. Research from mobile advertising data company Vpon found that 77 percent of mobile ads served during the first half of 2017 in the region were delivered via mobile apps, as opposed to the mobile web. According to estimates from eMarketer, mobile ad spending in the region will total $53.21 billion this year and will grow to $115.82 billion by 2021, when it will account for 77.5 percent of all digital ad spending there.

Asia-Pacific is set to outpace other regions in terms of in-app ad spend, growing at a rate of 25 percent CAGR, App Annie predicts. By 2021, ad spend there will total over $77 billion—roughly tripling from 2016.

At 15 percent Europe, the Middle East and Africa are behind in terms of mobile ad spend CAGR. App Annie attributes this to a less robust mobile advertising infrastructure in the Middle East and Africa, specifically, that counterbalances growth in Europe.

Blizzard Is Opening Up College Esports For Brands

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Blizzard Entertainment is growing its collegiate esports programs across Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, StarCraft II, World of Warcraft and Rocket League. Over the past four years, Tespa has grown from four to 220 student communities across campuses in the United States and Canada. During the 2017 and 2018 school year, there will be over $1 million in college scholarships awarded through Tespa league tournaments.

Adam Rosen and Tyler Rosen, co-founders of Tespa and program managers at Blizzard Entertainment, told AListDaily that while there are over 65,000 student members, that number is about to grow.

“Historically, in order to participate, you had to go to a university or through a league, but that didn’t work for players who didn’t have campus chapters, so now anyone can go online and register to become a member,” Tyler said.

“Every college student in North America—regardless of their school’s Tespa chapter status—can become a member,” Adam added. He also extolled the benefits of Tespa Plus, a paid, premium membership.

Tespa is launching the online hub Tespa University, which will outline the local chapters and opportunities for students to get involved in college esports. This hub will also host six weekly esports broadcasts as part of a regularly scheduled programming push by the organization that will include spring and fall seasons.

The Rosens said this infrastructure focus will replace past one-off events and connect esports with these communities in much the same way college basketball and football do.

“There will be a season and offseason like football or basketball, so that when universities are looking at esports there’s a consistent schedule and it’s predictable and the formats will be the same,” Tyler explained.

This will also open up new opportunities for brands interested in connecting with college esports fans. Adam said the Tespa audience mirrors the overall collegiate demographic, although 70 percent of Tespa’s audience are STEM majors in college.

“For students who are playing or watching these competitions, it’s very much a social experience,” Tyler said. “Students are engaging with esports in their spare time, so it’s best for brands to approach them in a natural way.”

Tespa has had a strong partnership with SteelSeries, which provided keyboards, headsets and gear to its chapters. There was also an integrated media component to this sponsorship, where the SteelSeries brand was integrated into the media pieces in the Tespa broadcasts.

“We’re seeing a lot of interest from brands across the board, which is exciting to the communities and universities already involved,” Tyler said. “Brands are looking at ways to be integrated into the program.”

Adam added that college, in general, is a formative time for students to learn about and align with different lifestyle or esports brands. “As we open membership and become more public, we’re creating that pathway for brands to come in naturally and interact and engage directly with students.”

There’s also a new broadcast push this year to cover the six collegiate leagues, which also opens up new brand marketing opportunities.

“Through each of our broadcasts we can do custom segments and lower thirds and product placements just like with traditional college sports,” Tyler said. “We’re really doubling down on broadcasts this year on the Tespa Channel and see college esports competition through these leagues six nights a week.”

Adam believes college esports are more accessible than traditional professional esports because of the college affiliations—when Heroes of the Dorm aired matches on ESPN, they saw new fans hooked into rivalries like Michigan and Ohio State.

Trying to connect new fans with professional esports rivalries like Cloud9 against Immortals could be more challenging. But there will be new ways to connect pro esports with collegiate, especially with the upcoming Overwatch League that Activision Blizzard is launching.

“While the Overwatch League is officially disconnected from Tespa, it does offer a vibrant ecosystem in which collegiate esports plays an interesting angle,” Adam said. “Collegiate esports will be a great place to discover talent. It will also be interesting way for pro players to go back to college and continue to participate. We believe in the same things as the Overwatch League in that the local fan bases are important.”

‘Star Trek Timelines’ Introduces ‘Discovery’ By Engaging With Franchise Fans

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Star Trek: Discovery is the first new show in the franchise since Enterprise concluded in 2005, and it already has a lot on its shoulders. Debuting in September, the show takes place a decade before the original TV series and stars Sonequa Martin-Green (The Walking Dead), Jason Isaacs (the Harry Potter movies), Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) and others.

Discovery will premiere on the CBS broadcast channel before moving exclusively to CBS All Access—making it the first original show for the digital subscription service. Reigniting a relatively dormant TV franchise, even after three blockbuster reboot movies (Star Trek Beyond released in 2016), while promoting interest in a new subscription service may be daunting, but if any franchise is big enough for the task, it’s Star Trek.

But even the best starship could use some reinforcements once in a while. That’s where Disruptor Beam comes in with its mobile role-playing strategy game Star Trek Timelines, which takes characters and ships from across almost the entire Star Trek franchise, including the TV shows and original movies, and offers them for players to collect and create stories with. The studio has announced that it will be adding in content from Discovery as the premiere draws closer and will continue to do so as new episodes release.

Past Becomes Future

Jon Radoff, CEO at Disruptor Beam

Disruptor Beam has a great deal of experience working with ongoing IPs. The studio also made Game of Thrones: Ascent in partnership with HBO to keep audiences engaged during the show’s off season.

“HBO had told us after the first season aired that they were interested in engaging the audience during the 40 weeks out of the year that the show wasn’t airing new episodes,” Jon Radoff, CEO at Disruptor Beam, told AListDaily. “We worked with them very closely to engage the Game of Thrones viewing audience. Today, it has over 20 million viewers an episode, and I think we played an important part in engaging that audience.”

However, Game of Thrones already had a viewing audience by the time Ascent released for mobile. How will Timelines help to promote a new show that doesn’t have viewership yet—never mind one that will be locked behind a subscription service?

“I see it as new content within Star Trek, which is an enormous franchise,” Radoff explained. “This isn’t like watching a new TV show that people aren’t familiar with. This is drawing on over 700 episodes of Star Trek and continuing the story of exploration and adventure throughout the galaxy. Disruptor Beam isn’t really launching a new TV show per se, as we are continuing a franchise that already exists.”

Radoff believes that CBS chose the right franchise for All Access, given how HBO and Netflix proved that there is a great deal of interest in subscription services when they’re anchored to beloved franchises. All the Star Trek shows, including the 1973 animated series, can be watched on Netflix. Radoff said that “between Netflix’s worldwide presence plus the interest from the Star Trek audience in seeing it come back, I anticipate that the audience will be enormous.”

Discovering Discovery

Game of Thrones is currently in its seventh season, and Ascent has had over 200 content updates that coincided with the show since it launched four years ago. With Star Trek, Disruptor Beam has over 50 years of content to work with. Timelines is well into its second year and has over 400 characters in it, but it doesn’t look like it will be running out of content anytime soon, especially as the studio works with CBS to prepare audiences for Discovery. But interest in the franchise still doesn’t address how the studio will introduce characters that fans haven’t seen before.

“One of the things that we like to do is introduce interesting characters as people are meeting them through watching the show,” Erin Prince, product owner of Star Trek Timelines at Disruptor Beam, told AListDaily. “Already, people have been introduced to some of the main characters and the first ship. So, we’re going to be releasing these characters in a cadence that’s similar to the show. As you see new characters develop into new fan favorites, they’ll be introduced into the game. We’ll be spanning this over the course of the season, not just introducing everything in one big chunk up front. The first things that you see will be things that fans have already gotten excited about from the trailers and the magazine spreads.”

“We’re not leading into the game with things that are unfamiliar,” added Radoff. “We’re taking what you’re already seeing within the show and fostering deeper engagement by giving you the ability to experience the show in a different way.”

Prince said that Disruptor Beam is in discussions with CBS Consumer Products and CBS All Access to establish a cross promotional strategy. They’re working so that the show will help drive awareness of the game and vice versa. “We’re creating a partnership where there’s a back-and-forth,” said Prince. “They love our deeply engaged Star Trek audience and we’re happy to engage with a CBS audience that’s about to become Star Trek fans.”

“We bring an audience of five million people who played Star Trek Timelines,” said Radoff. “We’ve put out over a billion impressions online for the viewing audience, so the Star Trek audience knows that Timelines exists. By adding Discovery to it, it will reinforce the show as the new canonical extension to the universe. From the CBS side, they own channels in addition to CBS All Access, and they have social media channels that have access to over 10 million fans across fan pages, StarTrek.com, email lists and so on. CBS has cultivated a lot of different channels for communicating with fans, not the least of which was the Star Trek Las Vegas convention, which is one of the largest Star Trek conventions in the world with 20,000 fans coming together.”

Engaging A Fragmented Fan Base

The Star Trek franchise is over 50 years old and spans multiple TV shows and movies, so Disruptor Beam isn’t just dealing with one kind of Star Trek fan with Timelines. Individuals may have favorite shows or characters dating back to the 1960s show.

“It’s a different fan base and one of the interesting things about that is that they have different levels of experience in gaming,” said Prince. “This is part of why we wanted to expand beyond the mobile platform—we moved Timelines onto Facebook and Steam recently, where we’re reaching an even broader audience of Star Trek fans. When we put new features and content into the game, we make sure we’re never losing any of these fan bases. We start with easy-to-understand mechanics and then we pull in characters from all over the different series plus the movies and isolate them.”

As an example, Prince said that they would take a time traveling character and mash it with other time traveling characters from other shows.

“The fragmentation of the characters benefits the kinds of games we create,” said Radoff. “There are a lot of characters out there with the big five being Kirk, Spock, Data, Warf and Picard. That said, there’s an enormous amount of interest in a whole range of other characters. Everybody has a favorite character they want to have. When we’re dealing with something as expansive as Star Trek, it’s important that we have something for everyone. They may see a character or ship from a series they don’t like, but fans realize that Star Trek is a big universe with a lot in it. It’s fine if they don’t want those characters or ships—it’s a collecting game.”

Radoff also shared his thoughts about where the Star Trek brand fits in today, especially since modern technologies outpace some of those seen in old episodes.

“The story of Star Trek isn’t so much of a technological one,” Radoff said. “Yes, we now have mobile phones that are more powerful than the communicators they had in [the original] Star Trek, but we don’t have warp travel and teleporters, so we have a ways to go on that front. What Star Trek is really about is an optimistic view of the future. There’s a lot of darkness in the world right now, and that’s not necessarily new. People who watched the original Star Trek were watching at the time of the Cold War. So, Star Trek has always been a counterpoint to what’s going on in the world and the darkness and cynicism out there. It shows that the human spirit of exploration and adventure is alive and there’s an optimistic future out there beyond the stars.”

LG’s Latest Marketing Splash Is A Dishwasher Aimed At Disruption

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LG is soaking spectators during the summer season with a dishwasher-themed experiential marketing installation smack dab in the middle of Manhattan.

The 6,750 square-foot pop-up water park, which coincides with the tenth annual Citi Summer Streets, is intended to promote the LG QuadWash and the product’s four spray arm technology that doubles up on the category’s traditional two-spray-arm design—all while drenching festivalgoers.

The inflatable water attraction, located next to Central Park and about two-and-a-half times the size of a tennis court, is modeled from the exterior and interior elements of the LG QuadWash.

“Let’s face it—the dishwasher is not the most exciting thing in the household. Yet, it’s essential, and a way for parents to have children chip in to complete their chores,” Peggy Ang, head of home appliance brand marketing at LG Electronics USA, told AListDaily. “When we looked at how we can launch a product differently, we considered timing, so the water park consumer experience and idea was born. A water park in the middle of Manhattan is as unique and disruptive as an experience can be for our target audience as we shine on our technological innovations.”

Peggy Ang unveils LG’s QuadWash water park activation during the Summer Streets press conference.

LG wanted as many people as possible to have a personal experience and touchpoint with the over-the-top branding effort while beating the heat and turning a mundane experience into something more rich and meaningful, Ang says. The marketing activation is designed to drive affinity and relationships with consumers and promote the brand’s proposition, “Life’s Good.” Partnering with Citi Summer Streets—they’re part of a larger sponsorship of the festival—was a natural fit for LG, Ang says, because it brings families together.

The LG QuadWash, priced at $699, is one of the brand’s key product launches this year and is marketed for affluent, “technology inclined” consumers. The South Korean electronics manufacturer’s other product launch this year was the LG InstaView door-in-door refrigerator, which was also paired with an out-of-home interactive experience. A third flagship item will launch in the fall.

“LG’s brand strategy with activations and advertising this year has celebrated the realistic elements of life in a no-filter world,” Ang says. “The one tenet that we’re looking for in everything that we’re doing now is disruption. Yes, it’s a common term used in marketing. We look at disruption not for the sake of it, but to give consumers a different view of a boring task like dishwashing, and bringing that to life. It also opens the conversation on how dishwashing merits a second look, and can be a part of the family experience.”

As newfangled appliances hit the marketplace, Ang says LG is finding marketing inspiration from its consumers.

“We give consumers the liberty to think bigger and better than just the traditional context by which our products live in the home. We’re trying to expand everyone’s creative juices while making sure our tech innovation is not lost in the shuffle,” she says. “If we need to bring that out of the traditional view—we will. We’ll not compromise on the consumers, though. Yes, we’re selling dishwashers—there’s no question about that. But we’re embracing and acknowledging consumers while doing so with experiences outside of the kitchen.”

Ang says she considers the brand to be media-agnostic and uses experiences like the one currently erected at Citi Summer Streets until August 19 to gain insights into their consumer profile. For its New York activation, LG is avoiding channels like paid media and surveys to specifically amp up its PR and social presence with contests centered around giveaways.

“We need to bring innovation that makes sense to the daily lives of consumers. That means, ‘how can I bring more meaning to your life? Or a smile?’ The strength of our brand comes from true LG fans. We’re trying to take a different path,” — Peggy Ang, head of home appliance brand marketing at LG Electronics USA.

In addition to livestreams from inside the water park, LG also has 30 on-site ambassadors in poolside cabanas giving product demos and netting nuggets of intel on the kind of value consumers see in their product.

“The comments [on social media] are beyond the usual that we’ve experienced,” Ang said. “They’ve been speaking and referring to us with some of our marketing lingo. The images guests share can be very telling, too. I value that as the most authentic piece of content I can push than any paid media possibly can. They only share stuff to their audience that they’re proud of. When I see the pictures, I can tell they’re excited, and that it’s not a farfetched correlation between what we’re doing, and how we’re making an impact in their lives. When we speak together as cohorts, it makes us more relatable as a brand, all while helping us reinforce our brand proposition.”

Using influencers such as Fortune Feimster, Adrienne Moore, JD Witherspoon and Sam Talbot like they are with the water park is part of LG’s marketing strategy, Ang says, but it’s not the driver. LG considers consumers who share their thoughts with their communities as points of influence.

“Dishwashing is not exciting—we get it. But it’s so ripe for disruption and innovation,” Ang says. “When I joined the company last year, I told the stakeholders, ‘You have great products. We need to innovate the marketing.’ That didn’t mean turning everything upside down . . . We believe LG has an important role to play in the enhancement of the home, and how families can interact with their appliances.”

In the case of the LG QuadWash dishwasher, the main learning so far has been that consumers want to save time on the tedious task of dishwashing duties, no matter how much “fun” it is.

Ang believes the home appliance category can use a serious marketing shake-up.

“I’m a marketer. I get excited about a lot of things,” she says. “We need to bring innovation that makes sense to the daily lives of consumers. That means, ‘how can I bring more meaning to your life? Or a smile?’ The strength of our brand comes from true LG fans. We’re trying to take a different path.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFU61nn8DJE

For Deep Silver, ‘Agents Of Mayhem’ Marketing Is All About Character And Humor

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Agents of Mayhem is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC from Volition, the developer behind Saints Row. Together with publisher Deep Silver, the game’s developers focused its advertising around getting close and personal with its 12 new characters.

One way of doing this was through sponsored content on DeviantArt, in which artists imagine what each of the Mayhem agents would do in his/her down time. “Agents of Mayhem: After Hours” reveals each new piece, along with artist interview, over a span of 24 days.

In Agents of Mayhem, players must choose between 12 different agents to form a three-person squad—a “carnage à trois,” if you will, and fight an organization called Legion. Each agent has a unique skill set, personality and weapon specialty.

Volition has and continues to host a number of livestreams on Twitch to give fans an advance look at Mayhem‘s gameplay and features. The team even included the game’s voice actors to help introduce each character with their own dedicated stream session.

On August 18, Volition is hosting a celebration in its home town of Champaign, Illinois, where people can try the game for themselves. Sharp-eyed fans who spot and take a selfie with Mayhem agents seen around town can enter to win Volition swag.

Despite being a direct spin-off from one of the Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell endings, Agents of Mayhem is its own game with its own universe. One thing that hasn’t changed is Volition’s trademark sense of humor—a tool that Deep Silver used to attract existing Saints Row fans to a new franchise.

Deep Silver “leaked” part of one of the game’s cut scenes on adult video site, YouPorn. A fake sex tape called “Deep Under the Cover” features Hollywood, an ex-reality-star-turned-Mayhem agent in some “compromising” situations. The video is actually quite tame—enough to be hosted by YouTube—but created enough buzz on the popular website that it ended up on the front page.

Following the intentional leak, Deep Silver issued a press release addressing the made-up controversy, “denying” that it was Hollywood on the tape.

Not long after, a mix tape by August Gaunt—a villain in the game inspired by Justin Bieber—was “leaked” on SoundCloud. The campaign made it sound like he took over DJing at a Seoul radio station one night. The music is actually from the game, remixed by musician and DJ Grimecraft.

“I think that between the political spectrum and everything, there is an opportunity to make people laugh,” Will Powers, senior manager of marketing and communications at Deep Silver told AlistDaily. “People are starved for content in the gaming space that will allow them to laugh and relax instead of coming home from a serious day at work, seeing serious news and playing a serious game. That’s opened up an opportunity for us to come in and hammer our unique tone and why Volition has always created games that are over-the-top and crazy—they’re fun, but not meant to be taken seriously. That’s the market we see as a huge growth opportunity for this game.”