The Wearable Market Still Faces An Uphill Climb

With the Apple Watch now available, the wearable tech market is pushing to an all-new level, as more consumers become interested in Apple’s latest tech. However, when it comes to the general medium of wearable tech as a whole, it still has a ways to go, according to eMarketer.

A new report from ACCENT Marketing Services indicates that consumers are still a little confused when it comes to figuring out the most practical use for wearables. Approximately a quarter of internet users indicated that they are excited about watches, although that’s a lower number of the 44 percent that said they’re more interested in activity trackers or fitness bands. An even lower number, eight percent, expressed interest in fitness clips.

The Apple Watch makes use of these features, although that still doesn’t clarify exactly what consumers are looking for, as some can’t even figure out the difference between a smart watch and a fitness band – aside from price, of course.

ACCENT stated that one in three internet users surveyed wanted some form of wearable device for quicker access to social sites, as well as because they “looked cool.” Some even expressed that they wanted to see bigger possibilities with brands marketing with the devices.

However, the bottom line is that it’s not that big a draw just yet. Only 19 percent of those surveyed indicated they wanted to buy some form of wearable tech, with men more likely than women (at 25 percent compared to 13 percent). Baby boomers were the most likely age group to probably buy in, with 20 percent.

Ease of use could also be a factor, since the Apple Watch requires pairing with an iPhone. However, some people like the idea of connectivity, as the report shows that 63 percent of users believe that a wearable tech device should work with other mobile devices, no matter what operating system they use. Meanwhile, 22 percent feel that it should operate independently, while 15 percent feel that it should use the same OS in a seamless manner.

Said John Hoholik, chief engagement and solutions officer at ACCENT, “People will start to engage as much as the technology allows them to engage, and I don’t know that marketers and brands have really thought that through yet. I think it will evolve much as social has evolved. It will grow and change, and what consumers need will dictate the different ways marketers behave on these new platforms.”

That isn’t stopping some companies from trying, though. VentureBeat has reported that one developer, Robot 5 Studios, will try to get ten Apple Watch games released before the end of June – an unprecedented amount for a new device.

But despite questionability on the market, the studio remains confident. Said Peter Chen, founder and CEO of Robot 5, “If we think back to the transition from gamers spending time on consoles and desktop games to spending more and more time playing games on a smartphone that’s always nearby, we can imagine a future not too far away where gamers prefer the convenience of playing certain types of games on their Apple Watch instead of pulling out their smartphones.

“There’s a time and place for games on a watch, smartphone and huge screen –we think that an increasing amount of time will be spent on watch games.”

We certainly wish Robot 5 the best of luck on its app launches.

NewFronts 2015 Sees Many New Digital Entrants

There’s no question that digital content is slowly but surely moving in on traditional television’s territory, with the likes of Netflix, HBO Now, Hulu Plus and others offering the kind of on-demand content that makes it easier for folks to “cut the cord” from their television. And it looks like that strength is growing, judging by the attendees coming to the NewFronts 2015 event.

Set to take place next week, the two-week NewFronts event, which takes place in New York, will see 34 companies providing presentations, with a major focus on on-demand entertainment, according to Variety. These companies include YouTube, Hulu, Disney’s Maker Studios, AOL, Vice Media, Yahoo, Machinima, Defy Media and Buzzfeed, among others. Traditional media companies will also have presentations, including the New York Times, News Corp. and Bloomberg. (The full schedule is available here.)

More digital companies entering the fray is quite simple – and understandable from a business perspective. “People are starting to understand that there’s a lot of money to be made in digital, beyond just YouTube,” said Alan Wolk, senior analyst for TDG Research.

Wolk certainly isn’t wrong, as the U.S. digital video-ad spending is expected to take a 30 percent jump to $7.8 billion this year. While TV advertising continues to be strong at nearly ten times that ($70.6 billion), it’s certainly taken a hit.

With NewFronts, companies are looking for opportunities to show what they have – like Machinima with its recent backings by Warner Bros. and Google. Said CEO Chad Gutstein, “People are understanding that (content created on YouTube and other digital platforms) is not a cute little thing you’re doing. I’m beginning to feel the tipping point has happened.”

This also marks a slight change from NewFronts’ original format, which focused on Internet-video distributors getting on the radar of marketers in control of TV budgets and such. “When this started, people were making proclamations that they were worthy of attention,” said Dawn Ostroff, head of Conde Nast Entertainment. “But in a very short period of time it’s become much more important – digital is now an important part of the buy. The engagement in digital video is very significant.”

Continuing to talk about focus on programming, Ostroff added, “Our strategy is, you have a certain amount of content you’re going to make but you’re really selling across a network, so advertisers can buy a demo or a segment. It’s not unlike a television network.”

Although some question the advertising commitments that come from the show, “There is tremendous interest from advertisers and brands to hear about what everyone is doing – whether or not they spend ad dollars the next day,” said Keith Richman, president of Defy Media. “What you’ll see from us is just how deep the ecosystem is, and how the views associated with our brands are really strong relative to television.”

Speaking with Adage, StyleHaul CEO Stephanie Horbaczewski added, “There’s been a lot of evolution in the MCN (multichannel network) landscape over the last few years as MCN’s have vocally said the definition no longer really encompasses all of our businesses.”

The NewFronts event should certainly be interesting – especially as these MCN’s talk about their exclusives and features.

DC Creates New Super Hero Universe

In an effort to appeal more to the avid fanbase of female comic book fans, DC Universe has teamed up with Warner Bros. Animation, Mattel and Warner Bros. Consumer Products to create a new side universe called DC Super Hero Girls, which is aimed at fans aged 6-12, according to Variety.

This new series will make its debut this fall, featuring DC Comics’ “most powerful and diverse” female superheroes and villains. This includes notable favorites like Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Katana and Bumble Bee, amongst other characters that exist within the large DC Universe.

“Each character has her own storyline that explores what teen life is like as a superhero, including discovering her unique abilities, nurturing her remarkable powers and mastering the fundamentals of being a hero,” said DC in a statement.

This new program will introduce an “immersive digital experience” that covers a variety of areas, including original digital content and publishing of comic books, TV specials, direct-to-demand videos, toys, apparel, books and other products, with a majority of them set to roll out in 2016. Next year is expected to be a big year for DC Comics, with the arrival of new movies based on the Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad properties, so the DC Super Hero Girls should fit right in.

“DC Entertainment is home to the most iconic and well-known superheroes including Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Batgirl,” said Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment. “DC Super Hero Girls represents the embodiment of our long-term strategy to harness the power of our diverse female characters. I am so pleased that we were able to offer relatable and strong role models in a unique way, just for girls.”

Women are certainly pushing forward in comics and their related products. Scarlett Johannsen plays a pivotal part in next week’s forthcoming Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron; Jessica Jones will be the focus of a forthcoming Netflix series, set to debut sometime later this year; and movies based on both Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are in the works.

Here’s to the ladies saving the day.

Is Facebook Not As Effective As It Used To Be For Mobile Game Advertising?

Facebook has seen a great deal of growth over the past few months, especially on the video front. That said, some companies are still having a bit of struggle when it comes to finding an effective advertising program on the popular social site.

Pocket Gamer recently ran an article talking about how the over-saturation of the channel is making it difficult for some companies to find success — namely mobile game developers. A report from Nanigans indicates that while the click through rate for gaming ads on Facebook continues to grow (up to 150 percent from the previous year), it dropped nine percent in a quarter-on-quarter measurement. And it’s not due to the holidays, either, as the drop has been ongoing for a six-month period.

As you can see, CTR-related gaming ads have seen a big rise over 2014, only to stay stagnant and, in the first quarter of 2015, drop down the nine percent. Part of this may be due to boredom, with users not willing to look at ads that pop up randomly in their feeds.

The CTR for eCommerce in general across Facebook apps has seen a great increase, though, up 281 percent year-on-year and 12 percent quarter-on-quarter, which indicates a loss of interest with certain game ads.

Part of the issue may also be with what the cost per click — or CPC — costs for companies that produce Facebook ads. The rate has risen an approximate 11 percent quarter-on-quarter, and 69 percent year-over-year, from $.47 to $.80. While that’s not a big deal individually, it adds up with each new click that the ads get. (Measurements for 1,000 impressions calculate at $5.17, a 324 percent rise over the previous year.)

So what does this mean for advertising on Facebook in general It’s still quite popular, but some mobile game developers may be looking elsewhere to advertise its wares unless Facebook can come up with something more effective to make its games shine again. It’ll be interesting to see where these trends wind up over the course of 2015.

The Demographics Of YouTube, Broken Down

There are plenty of people out there who spend hours at a time exploring YouTube, whether it’s for movie trailers, opinion on a certain subject, or even highlights from their favorite shows – either provided by the networks or not. No wonder it’s so popular in so many demographics.

Digiday recently broke down just how popular the channel has become. First off, it stated that, despite a large group of male and female viewers, male still leads the pack, with men spending 44 percent more time on the site on a monthly basis, and 51 categories dominated by about a 90 percent male viewing presence. That said, there’s still plenty for women to do, as indicated in the chart below.

According to stats provided by OpenSlate, makeup and cosmetics lead the pack in female topics, with 89.3 percent overall viewership, followed by skin and nail care, weight loss and popular East Asian and pop music. Oh, and who can resist dogs

Gaming rules on the guys’ side of the playing field, with collectible card games taking a huge chunk, followed by Nintendo and Sony. There are some non-gaming trends in there, like bodybuilding, soccer, and graphics and animation software.

“As soon as you omit gaming as a macro category, it goes to almost 50-50,” said Mike Henry, CEO of Outrigger Media, the operator of OpenSlate. “Guys spend an incredible amount of time watching gaming videos.”

Then there are age groups, in which are broken down in the chart below.

comScore reports that the 25-34 bracket leads the charge in monthly viewers, judging by March 2015 numbers, with over 40 million. The 35-44 and 45-54 groups are closely behind, followed by the 18-24 group. Surprisingly enough, there are a large number of senior viewers as well, around the 20 to 26 million point.

However, these numbers can be quite different depending on category. In the field of beauty and style channels, females 18-24 lead with nearly 40 percent of all viewers, followed by the 13-17 and 25-34 age brackets. Meanwhile, men’s numbers for this category are incredibly low, barely registering five percent at the most.

By comparison, pets and animals channel have a better split between the two groups, with males and females 25-34 showing the highest numbers, around 15 to 17 percent, followed by 18-24 and 34-44.

“Understanding who is watching what at a really grandular level is where the storytelling process starts,” said Henry. “You can always find these people and target them, but it’s a completely different value proposition if you can target them in the mindset they’re in with a message that fits.”

Breaking Down The Birth Of A New Franchise

When you’re creating a new game franchise from scratch, it can take quite a while to get started. You need to build capital and interest in the title, make sure that development goes through without many hitches, and then work on the marketing side, assuring that there’s some form of outreach to consumers.

Andrew Stalbow, who previously spoke at the previously held [a]list summit, recently made a post on the Medium.com page, explaining what it takes to continue the establishment of a popular franchise on a new platform.

Best Fiends is the game in question, and, in the post, Stalbow breaks down the step-by-step process of continuing to build on its success. First, he explains his reasoning behind choosing the Apple Watch for the game. “We believe Apple Watch is the most significant new media platform since the iPad, and as a company we were determined to be there on day one,” he explained.

He then discusses the savvy development team, featuring head of game design Reko and senior programmer Mikko, and then showcased the game’s trailer, which can be found below.

But Stalbow also explained that he has a deeper vision than that for his team. “Our company vision at Seriously is to build the Pixar of mobile by marrying the creativity of our stellar team with the data we get from people experiencing our products,” he said. “We treat our apps, where we are directly connected to our audience, as the platforms on which to build out our franchise.”

Creative marketing also plays a huge part with the game, as demonstrated by the Valentine’s Day Challenge below, which includes YouTube talents like PewDiePie and others taking part in the shenanigans surrounding the popular game. You can see that video below.

Along with the game’s latest update, Stalbow also discussed how the team was giving back to charity, as it teamed up with Malaria No More to help take care of over 25,000 sick children through promotions with the game, raising over $30,000.

Other partnerships have helped the game oversee success in other countries as well, as a new deal with Incross will bring the series to Korea. This will no doubt see similar numbers to what the game has obtained in China, with a huge amount of downloads.

Kidrobot has also partnered with the company to produce branded vinyl and plush figures, which are being created by Frank Kozik. There’s no word on release, but they shouldn’t be too far off.

“We’ve been careful not to rush consumer products for Best Fiends, but now feels like the right time to do something collectible given the growth of our audience,” said Stalbow.

With over 12 million downloads of the mobile game and over 600,000 hours of engagement with the community, Best Fiends should have no trouble reaching a new success on the Apple Watch. “Now we have the foundations of an entertainment franchise in place, we’ll have a lot more to share over the coming months with new partnerships, frequent game updates and our second game later this year,” concluded Stalbow. “In the meantime, we hope you continue to enjoy playing Best Fiends!

The post can be found in full here.

Asia Digital Game Revenue Nears $20 Billion

A new report from Superdata indicates that the Asian digital game market is hitting an all-time high, clearing nearly $20 billion for the year.

A big portion of these games come from Japan, with an estimated 45 percent, followed by China with 38 percent and South Korea with 11 percent. As for what kind of games dominate, mobile leads the charge with 59 percent, while other categories, like free-to-play MMO, social and console follow with smaller numbers. It’s expected to account for 38 percent of the worldwide digital games market, with a rise of eight percent expected by next year — making its total over $21 billion.

The report indicates that Japan, even with its smaller population than China, has a higher revenue, by 16 percent. Most of this applies towards mobile, a market that manages to clean up with nearly twice as much made as China’s. That said, PC still makes a big dent in the market, especially in South Korea, where it makes up more than a third of the overall digital games market.

Out of overall payment preferences, gamers show a heavy preference to eWallet (32 percent), followed closely by credit/debit card (21 percent) and mobile (16 percent). Preferred payment methods like Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s Tenplay make eWallet purchases the most convenient option for many.

As great as this news is, there is some slight concern over conversion rate. The report shows that fewer players spend in Asia than in almost any other region, so despite the higher amount spent, the numbers aren’t as great as they could be.

China’s overall digital games market is expected to amass $7.5 billion for this year, with mobile showing the highest growth rate at 19 percent, followed by free-to-play MMO (11 percent) and social (seven percent). That’s a five times greater increase over other regions in Asia.

The report is available for download here.

Twitch, Old Spice Promotion Smells Of Success

Earlier this month, we reported that Old Spice was teaming up with Twitch  for a promotion where chatters could take control of a man’s actions in the woods for three days, with a number of wacky events that tied in with the fun. As a result, the promotion was a big success, leaving both parties smelling like a rose.

The “Old Spice Nature Adventure,” which took place this past week, managed to gain 2.65 million total views, with 1.4 million chatters taking part to see what happened next for the Nature Man, the subject in question. The top commenter managed to throw out 1,900 different comments during the session alone.

In addition, 57 percent of those total views came from uniques, with 702,920 total for the three days, and around 88,000 uniques per hour. That obviously helped generate new numbers for Twitch, already building on its impressive 100 million monthly viewers.

Over the course of the three day event, approximately 29 years of footage was watched between all the viewers, and the exclusive Old Spice chat emotes – little characters that were introduced for use in the chatroom – were used over 105,000 times.

As a result of the high viewership, the “Old Spice Nature Adventure” had no trouble keeping an organic spot on the front page of Twitch, and also got attention on Reddit through nine different consumer-submitted posts, including a request for an AMA directly with Old Spice.

With the success of this promotion – as well as other live-streaming tie-ins {link no longer active} that Twitch has done in the past with partners – it’s likely more companies could get on board in the future with the streaming service. To see just what kind of shenanigans went down during the three days “Old Spice Nature Adventure,” check out the video below.

Nature Man, you sweet smelling beast, you.

 

Victorious Launches Apps For Online Stars

A few months ago, Victorious launched their online service, hoping to reach out to young online superstars in the hopes of creating applications that would provide an easier outreach to their growing fan bases. Today, that plan has been put into motion.

TechCrunch has reported that the company has launched the first two of these applications onto the market, featuring superstars like Ryan Higa and The Young Turks. Even those who aren’t “superfans” of these stars will notice that this is a great new business model for Victorious, one that can benefit them and their clients alike with professionally built applications.

Higa, with 14.2 million subscribers on YouTube, will use his app to release unseen footage, as well as debut new shows directly through it, as well as allow fans to interact through an interactive community, where they can share their own content.

Co-founder and CO Sam Rogoway explained to TechCrunch a while back that the key to making successful apps is to work closely with the superstars the team has in mind. “We’re big believers in not just handing an app over to our creative partners and saying good luck. We spend a lot of time working with them to find ways in which we can activate superfans and keep them highly engaged,” he said.

“More than ever, the creator is king,” added co-founder and chief creative officer Bing Chen.

So far, stars seem quite pleased with what the service has to offer. Said Higa, “I’ve always wanted to connect with my viewers but there’s only so much you can do through commenting and tweets.”

Victorious is just getting started as well. The company plans to introduce a series of apps for other stars, including Michelle Phan, Freddie Wong, Jukin Media, and DeStorm Power, along with popular YouTube channel Geek & Sundry and its associated superstars. With 250 million fans in tow, its own network is growing as well – and it intends to expand upon that with partnerships with undisclosed franchises and TV shows.

Those who want to check out Higa’s TeeHee app can do so on iOS and Android, and The Young Turks can be downloaded for iOS and Android as well.

Facebook Makes Exclusive Branded Video Pitch To Advertisers

by Sahil Patel

Facebook has officially unveiled its Anthology program, which is designed to pair digital publishers with advertisers to create exclusive video content for the social network.

At launch, Anthology has seven media partners: Vice MediaElectus Digital,Vox MediaFunny or DieThe OnionTastemade, and Disney’s Oh My Disney digital division.

“Anthology is equal parts art and science, pairing publisher creativity with Facebook advertising insights to create custom campaigns that meet brands’ business goals,” the social giant said in a blog post. In other words, Anthology will focus on combining the storytelling and production capabilities of its publishing partners with audience and other insights from Facebook to help advertisers create video ads that get viewed and shared on Facebook.

Keep reading…

This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.