This mobile co-branding era, as seen with Angry Birds and the movie Rio, should not be seen as an exception.
Gaming is mainstream
The common cliche of a gamer -- a lonely teenager spending hours in his room in front of his Xbox -- is no more.
Times have changed. As the most popular activities on smartphones are now games, the gamer profile has evolved.
With more than 40% of the UK population having a smartphone, the critical mass for advertisers has been reached, and gamers’ profiles are now diverse.
In a recent survey by the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) the average age of a player was shown to be 37 years, 42% were female, and 29% of gamers were over the age of 50.
Even more interesting; 55% of gamers play games on phones or handheld devices.
Gaming -- a good way to reach consumers though their smartphone
In the 90’s, the battle was to be the homepage of users, in the 00’s it was to be at the top of search ranking. In the 10’s it is surely to be on the home screen of their mobile device.
Smartphones are a brilliant way for brands to connect with its audience: It’s personal, it can share data, offer rich experiences, and it can be used to buy products.
Games are not the magical solution for every brand, or every business problem, but they should be seen as an opportunity to create entertaining digital content.
However when co-branding a game it requiress more than just adding a brand in the game title:
- the game and the brand should share a common audience
-the game context should be relevant to the brand
-and the final product should not be the exact copy of the original game
In fact, one of the interesting facts about mobile game co-branding is that the game is sold, and not given for free.
Thus it must appeal to the existing player base and the new audience brought by the brand.
So when should brands create games over scratch or co-branding?
From a general perspective, creating a game from scratch is more resource intensive and asks more understanding from the client. It’s a more long-term project but a more rewarding experience.
Developing a game from scratch should be seen as a long term commitment, as developing a platform.
However brands should stay aware that mobile games have a short lifespan, most of them being casual and short-lived games.
Game co-branding is less resource-consuming, can be activated more quickly but is more short term. Brands however should be ready to have less control of the output.
It can be seen more as a campaign.
At the end, whatever decisions are made, we should always keep in mind that the choice of the application is connected to a communication purpose, and gaming is only one of the potential options.
So the ipad 2 was launched in San Fransisco yesterday. For anyone who missed it the key points are that it is faster, slimmer and lighter.
In fact, its significantly faster. It’s in fact TWICE as fast as the original iPad. Maybe we have become so used to Apple progress that it is easy to just shrug our shoulders at such an achievemnet. Well its much more significant than that.
This is wehere Moore’s law comes in. Moore (who worked at Intel) stated in 1965 that the quantity of transisitors in an integrated circuit had been doubling over time. The graph below shows the strength of the correlation.
In 1975 Moore re-stated his law stating that the number of transitors was doubling every two years. Since 1965 Moore’s law has been correlated to a number of industries and more generally to the advancement of computing and it keeps working.
So with the ipad 2 we have seen that doubling in processing power within 12 months! Moore felt that the speed of advancement may actually slow after 10 years. So this is a “mind blowing” achievement and one that competitors will seriously struggle to compete with because in March 2012 the iPad3 will be twice as fast again.
This competitive advantage could last 10 years or more and as many futurists have noted is leading towards a potential technological singularity where innovation happens in an instant. So let’s make a bold prediction that the iPAd10 will arrive in 5 years not 10.
I have been using Spotify Premium for a few months now and barely even looked at iTunes since. Amazing how quickly habits change and how profoundly. I went from spending hundreds of pounds on CDs, importing them to iTunes, making playlists and listening to them on my ipod. I was happy. I liked this arrangement. Part of me was pleased with this new musical revolution. I bought a wireless device for the car so that my ipod could travel wherever I went and I delighted at the touch screen simplcity of the interface. This was 6 months ago.
Today all of that Apple kit lies wantonly in the house somewhere like a friend I have grown apart from. And I don’t think I’m going back.
Just to be clear, first and foremeost, I am a lover of music. I was a late adopter of iTunes and even CDs. I clung onto my love of vinyl for longer than was really sensible. I became somewhat militant. I loved vinyl. The digitisation of music was the devil’s work. And yet I became a very early adopter of Spotify. How times flies?
So what’s the secret of Spotify’s success.
For me it comes to down to the following 5 things:
The Experience: Frankly it is a thing of total beauty. Not only does it work but it works sublimely.
The Cloud: Everything is in the Cloud. Forever. And it works everywhere.
It’s Social: I could spend hours on this particular point but this is perhaps one of the best integartions of Facebook in existence. It seduces you into an endless journey of discovery.
Multi-device: It works on everything. Again beautifully.
Business Model: Follows the freemium model of tiered access enabling mass market reach and then premium services for the top tier.
New take on the 1:9:90 principle of digital creation, revision and consumption – an assumption/assertion that has become very standard when talking about things that have interactive features and the ability to create built in.
This model, 1:10:100:1000:10000, slips less easily off the tongue (should we call it ten to the 4?) but seems to more accurately sum up the tiers of influencers online.
Whereas we currently design for three tiers, we should look in the future to design for five, with special attention paid to our Catalytic Creative Contributor.
Close your eyes and think about Stephen Fry, Michelle Markin and 4chan. Could lead you somewhere different.
I think Cher Lloyd is now a racing certainty to win X-Factor.
I think this because Facebook told me so.
It seems that the marketing and management bods at Syco (Simon Cowell’s label) have been busy setting up Facebook accounts for the remaining acts in the competition. Of the eight remaining six have accounts – Katie does not due to the torrent of abuse it would receive, and Wagner doesn’t because… well because he’s Wagner.
I stumbled across these this morning whilst fulfilling a sudden need to get a double hit of X-Factor and social media. I found Rebecca Ferguson’s account – who is my favourite for what it is worth. It seemed very generic and clearly daily posts pumped out of Psycho. The URL was www.facebook.com/rebeccafergusonmusic. She had 97k fans when I checked. Not sure whether this was high or not I checked if the syntax worked for the remaining artists (e.g. mattcardlemusic, marybyrnemusic et.). It did and I listed the amount of fans they each had.
Cher Lloyd has far, far more than anyone else. Over a million in fact.
The bookies have Matt Cardle to win, followed by Rebecca and then One Direction.
However, based on Facebook I’m going to make the following guess for the result and order of elimination:
8th Katie Waissel – page not found
7th Wagner – page not found
6th Paije – 19,906
5th Rebecca Ferguson – 96,845
4th Mary Byrne – 97,660
However its likely to be Rebecca 4th, Mary 5th Katie 6th Wagner 7th and Paije 8th
I say that as Rebecca will always win a sing off with Mary based on the judges votes. Anyone will beat Wagner in a sing-off and they’ll keep Katie until she’s contractually obliged to sign for Psycho (6th) as they allegedly bought her out of an existing deal.
The final
3rd One direction – 164,673
2nd Matt Cardle – 343,137
Winner: Cher – 1,086,458
Issues
Correlation between “Likes” and actual voting.
I’m not saying there is completely. Its just the lead that I think makes it statistically relevant. Three times as many votes as hat boy Matt Cardle.
Voting is a moveable feast on X-Factor. Last year Daniel led for the first three weeks in the vote and then dropped away. Joe only came through as the winner once it was down to the final 4-5.
Bookies having the inside track
Again, its moveable in terms of votes. What is true now may not be in two weeks in terms of Saturday night votes. Where will all of Wagner’s votes go, and Mary’s and if the above is correct, Rebecca’s?
Media noise
Cher gets more media attention than the others as she’s brattish and there is gossip that goes with her, hence more interaction with her online. There would definitely be a relationship here, however despite her manifest diva nature and alliance with the fading start quality of Cheryl Cole, she is no Katie Waissel and seems to have the publics backing.
Make of it what you will. I think she’s a good bet to win.
Here’s where the crew of the good ship GU post their thoughts on t’interweb, the effect it’s having on us (far out) and take a punt on what’s going on out there. It’s a sea change. Kinda.
Take That on the sixth floor. even matt started singing. all together now- neeeeever pretend thats it all real. rob is putting headphones on 2010-03-03
Reaching by gaming
For the release of the “Puss in Boots” movie, Dreamworks made an interesting move by co-branding a new version of the multimillion downloaded phone game Fruit Ninja.
This mobile co-branding era, as seen with Angry Birds and the movie Rio, should not be seen as an exception.
Gaming is mainstream
The common cliche of a gamer -- a lonely teenager spending hours in his room in front of his Xbox -- is no more.
Times have changed. As the most popular activities on smartphones are now games, the gamer profile has evolved.
With more than 40% of the UK population having a smartphone, the critical mass for advertisers has been reached, and gamers’ profiles are now diverse.
In a recent survey by the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) the average age of a player was shown to be 37 years, 42% were female, and 29% of gamers were over the age of 50.
Even more interesting; 55% of gamers play games on phones or handheld devices.
Gaming -- a good way to reach consumers though their smartphone
In the 90’s, the battle was to be the homepage of users, in the 00’s it was to be at the top of search ranking. In the 10’s it is surely to be on the home screen of their mobile device.
Smartphones are a brilliant way for brands to connect with its audience: It’s personal, it can share data, offer rich experiences, and it can be used to buy products.
But too many brands have failed in offering interesting applications: Deloitte reports 80% of branded apps are downloaded less than 1000 times.
Games are not the magical solution for every brand, or every business problem, but they should be seen as an opportunity to create entertaining digital content.
One of the well known examples was Barclays Waterslide which reached 2 million downloads 2 years ago, accessing the exclusive club of the 1% of app downloaded more than 1 millions times.
However when co-branding a game it requiress more than just adding a brand in the game title:
- the game and the brand should share a common audience
-the game context should be relevant to the brand
-and the final product should not be the exact copy of the original game
In fact, one of the interesting facts about mobile game co-branding is that the game is sold, and not given for free.
Thus it must appeal to the existing player base and the new audience brought by the brand.
So when should brands create games over scratch or co-branding?
From a general perspective, creating a game from scratch is more resource intensive and asks more understanding from the client. It’s a more long-term project but a more rewarding experience.
Developing a game from scratch should be seen as a long term commitment, as developing a platform.
However brands should stay aware that mobile games have a short lifespan, most of them being casual and short-lived games.
Game co-branding is less resource-consuming, can be activated more quickly but is more short term. Brands however should be ready to have less control of the output.
It can be seen more as a campaign.
At the end, whatever decisions are made, we should always keep in mind that the choice of the application is connected to a communication purpose, and gaming is only one of the potential options.