Marketing has evolved in gaming, as it has with all entertainment media, given the changes the Internet has had on everyone’s lives. However, many senior marketing executives recently indicated that the fundamentals of marketing have not changed.

“Despite the changing media landscape, the basics of marketing haven t changed: start with the consumer, not the product; know where your audience are; be single-minded about your message,” says Sony Computer Entertainment UK’s marketing manager Alan Duncan. If you know what you are trying to say and who to, the rest will fall into place. Different media just achieve different parts of the job.”

“Many marketing directors had praise for what Nintendo has accomplished recently. A very important trend at least from a Nintendo platform point of view is the rejection of the traditional boom and bust approach to marketing,” said Nintendo marketing director Dawn Paine. “We discovered early on that non-gamers aren t as interested in day one as gamers and will pick up a game weeks, months and sometimes years after a release. This requires a different, less week-one focused, more disciplined approach using traditional methods like TV alongside experiential, PR and online.”

“Television is often considered the centerpiece of any campaign, and while it’s still a key component, its ROI has become more questionable. TV will consistently get you mass coverage and strong brand awareness, so it will always play a part,” said Yoostar marketing manager Tina Moore. “However, it does bring with it a huge amount of wastage and it is becoming harder and harder to guarantee that your audience are actually going to watch your ads without fast-forwarding through them.”

Thoughts about social media were even more mixed than television, with U.K. marketing director at Ubisoft, Murray Pannell saying, “There is still much to learn for everyone in this area, whether that s understanding social media as a tool for managing an online community or corporate image, or understanding how best to use these networks as a media channel to drive brand awareness and purchase intent. For me the jury’s still out on whether, for example, spending marketing budget on adding 50,000 Facebook Likes translates measurably into selling more games.”

Source: MCV