HEAD BLOG

The beautiful thing about working with video games is the sheer range of subjects you get to cover. One minute you are working on a sci-fi game and the next you are producing visuals for a cookery app. “Normal” agencies don’t get to flit around the product gamut as we do. It means that even though some companies see as as “specialist” others see the experience that we bring.

So when MBN Events came knocking we were pleased to put on our Sport Billy hat and begin producing the kind of exciting visuals that have helped sell games for UEFA, WWE, Race Pro and many other titles that in a normal world would take all the energies of top agencies.

Head First approach work in the same way, regardless of client size. We take a look at the consumer market in which such products rest and create imagery and ideas that measure up to the standard of quality expected whilst also standing out in terms of recognisable identity. Again, coming from the video game industry where every (for example) war game can look the same we have found that being distinctive can make all the difference.

For MBN we have begun producing high quality visuals to continue their already high quality approach for both print and video.

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I swore to myself when I was initiated into the Cub Scouts that I would never, ‘pon my honour, ever make a pun as bad as that one. As with most things in life, however, promises are made to be broken. Circumstances change and what seemed like a good idea at the time now looks dated and out of step.

Enter 2K Games, a company we’ve had dealings with in the past and for whom we have nothing but love and affection. OK, you can sidestep the client loving if you like and skip to the part where we say they came to us to request a new perspective on their International website. The world of HD video was passing them by and the amazing visuals they had in their games wasn’t being shown to full effect.

Head First came up with a new look which evolved the great work done previously and which would enable 2K to showcase their games in line with modern technology. Times continue to change, of course, and we’re aware that we’ll soon be beaming the demo packs straight to the cerebral cortex.

But we’ve got an App for that.

In addition to the design work, something within Head First just doesn’t stop thinking and we have also put in place several neat sub-branding opportunities for use in subsequent development.

We’ve been following the series of articles about cover art over at Kotaku very closely indeed. Here at Head First we understand that cover art is a vital part of the marketing mix. For some games it is the only form of advertising a game will get and so conveying the right degree of quality and content is essential.

It’s not, of course, the last word. The under-discussed back of box is an area that serves a vitaly important role in helping consumers decide whether or not the game is for them (and this goes for pretty much any related product subject to the whims of casual browsing – books, films especially).

If you’ve not read our ‘hilarious’ take on the process of buying games then you can catch up here.

Right. The laughs are dying down and it’s time to outline a few of the reasons why the back of box is so important.

It’s estimated that 40% of purchases are impulse. That’s a pretty big chunk of people deciding right there and then to buy a game. They could be gamers who have a vague idea of the sort of game they are looking for or they could be Ma and Pa, looking to buy a game because little Johnny has eaten his peas.

Now that’s a pretty diverse audience right there but let’s assume they have all missed your advertising campaign, or at least that it’s not the influencing factor. Price and packaging are key factors in this (showing how a proper sales strategy – something games don’t do that well – and cover art is important).

It’s the back of pack that is interesting because that can make a real difference here. Ma and Pa may well be looking for cover art that resembles what they’ve seen before so they will be drawn to “that sort of thing”. That means they will be picking up the box and taking a closer look. They need to be impressed and convinced that the game will be right.

The back of box can do this by being impressive and by being clear as to its message. Great visuals will give an idea of what the game will look like but how do you go about doing that? Is one big screenshot better than five smaller ones? One might be impressive but five smaller ones might give a better impression of the varied gameplay. Then again, five smaller screens might get lost in translation as the detail becomes too small to make out so maybe you opt for a montage of screens to make, in essence, a new piece of cover art derived completely from the game itself.

Or maybe you get brave and decide that your screenshots look pretty much the same as those of the competitor. That’s not an unreasonable stance to take. Nor is it anything to be ashamed of. The quality of games these days is remarkable. Having something “just” as good as the competitor isn’t bad, it’s “just as good”. And even if it is only marginally better – is that really noticeable in the screenshots or do the elements that make it better come across during your involvement?

In which instance you can see a strong case for doing something different on the back of box. Making an argument, or a claim – “Makes Modern Warfare 2 Look Like Jet Set Willy” you might opt for over a simpler image just to show that your visuals are amazing too.

There’s no correct route.

The decisions made when designing the back of box art depend on all the questions, all the intended audience data and the ultimate goal of the publisher.

Ok, so your customer has seen the ad you placed in obscure.weekly, made the effort to view your clever viral email featuring the talking monkey, wandered over to view the game trailer and then waited for two hours in order to get a bus into the city centre where they rushed into the nearest video game store and began hunting for the dazzling box art they have now committed to memory thanks to it featuring heavily on all your communications. You couldn’t afford to wallpaper the store with it but that’s ok, your customer knows what to look for thanks to a bit of clever wordplay on the ads. Copywriting, as we all know, is the ONLY thing that matters when it comes to marketing.

After ten minutes rearranging the stock on the shelf so that the first letter of each game now spells out a pretty rude word followed by “lol”, your customer has the box in his hands.

Life is good. Close this one sale through the power of marketing and you’re on your way to LA and the big time. Screw the PR, this was all your doing.

But wait. Is that a wobble? Is that doubt creeping into the customer’s mind? It’s been a few hours since he last connected to the Internet and, well, attention spans aren’t what they used to be. Times gone by would see us retaining information from before conception but these days we’re lucky if we remember what we lol’d about on our last Facebook update let alone what game we were about to buy.

Hang on. Where was I?

Oh yes, thank god for Outlook tasks.

He has the box but there’s a wobble. The pack next to yours, by chance of titling and the newly arranged order of things alone, has a pretty similar looking design. The competition’s robot looks even shinier though. And it has a woman standing next to it. Damn, why didn’t you think of that? You have women in your game and the lack of a shiny robot was SUPPOSED to convey the intensity of the battle. You really dropped the ball on that decision didn’t you? Two robots, one battle scarred and one shiny might have done the trick.

So what have you got up your sleeve to nudge the customer in the right direction? In your direction? There has to be something? Online advertising won’t work here. The POS is only being displayed in Bulgaria and the store manager, well, you’ll sort him out once the sequel to last year’s mostly successful game comes out. Then he’ll learn what purchasing power means.

At least the customer is still holding your pack. That’s something isn’t it? If he’s not distracted anytime in the next five seconds then chances are his eyes will get back to it. They have to at some point in order to successfully put it down. You factored for that right? Replacing packaging on the shelf can be a pivotal purchasing moment.

It’s not looking good. Although… that, there. Is that a twist of the hand? Yes. It is. The customer is flipping your game over and looking at the BACK OF PACK. Oh beautiful. This is where you’re home and dry. This is where 80% of your budget went because you knew that this is the meat of the matter. If cover art is the brawn then back art is the brains. And nobody marries the brawn. Right?

Let’s move on.

On the back you’ve thought about the information. Properly. This is where the customer begins to consume information. This is where they learn that there are TWO robots and ONE woman in the game. That’s good. He likes robots but couldn’t deal with more than one woman in a game. It’s not a game for girls.

You’ve thought of the three best features in the game and explained them v e r y  c l e a r l y in 4 words or less. You’ve added every variation of screenshot to make sure he knows that there are different terrains, different enemies, multiplayer, single player, puzzle solving, action sequences, storytelling, customisation, personalisation, social networking features, voice activated missile silos, dressing up sections (in armour because this isn’t, y’know, a girl’s game), rollercoaster high adrenaline, face shaking, ball shrinking, horror comedy tragedy grandparent friendly motiondetectingdancecrazysingtillyourvoicebreaksthen come-out-fighting-with-the-girl-on-your-arm-and-the-robots-beneath-your-personally-selected-boots gameplay.

Yep. When it comes to weaving a compelling argument around that back of pack we can safely say you’ve covered every base.

Hold on a minute. He’s put it down. He was only pretending to look at the game whilst he checked out the cute girl choosing her PS3 game in the aisle opposite.

Didn’t think of THAT now did you?

Working with the new breed of developer publisher has been an exciting challenge. In a world of digital downloads how are you going to make your product stand out? Do you confine your promotions solely to the online world or do you learn from companies such as Google and utilise the power of old media and the attention it still attracts?

At Head First we ask all of these questions and help shape the creative campaign to suit the product and the client. With The Mysteries of Little Riddle we have been lucky enough to bring our skills to this issue and create a series of images that are sales focussed.

And luckily there is still great fun to be had in creating real world objects.

If I were to leave you with an image of a broken rattle and an NSPCC logo you could fill in the blanks. As far as advertisements go you would be in no doubt as to the message. That is, of course, assuming you are aware of what the initials ‘NSPCC’ stand for. So whilst the advert could be seen as a risk (the risk being leaving you clueless as to its intention), it’s a minimal one.

Stood upon a train platform at 6:30 in the morning each day I take special note of the billboards that cycle through my early morning life. Even on the darkest of mornings, when it’s hard to see the person next to you, the powers that be ensure a warm glow surrounds the hoarding as it sits, fattened by years of paper and glue, by the platform edge.

If I were to leave you with an image of a guitar on a chair and a strapline of ‘It pays to be confused.com’ you might ask why, you might guess at the meaning by knowing that confused.com are in the insurance business or, like me, you might not understand what the message is supposed to be.

Teaser ads, ads that don’t give you a clear understanding of their purpose are a difficult form of advertising. Sometimes, as with the excellent campaign for The Economist, the tease is the message. But often they are designed to intrigue the viewer enough to peak interest and spark some sort of follow through whether it be through the viewer talking about the mystery or tapping the company name into a search engine.

Often, these campaign elements are a part of a larger, linked concept.

The result hopefully being greater than the sum of its parts; but that assumes the tease concept has sufficient power to spark that interest.

When I saw the billboard for confused.com I gave it quite a bit of thought. I didn’t understand its aim but I carried on thinking because advertsing is what I do. Was it just there to reinforce the brand name (which seemed like a waste of money) or was there a clever sight gag I was missing? I just didn’t know.

I’m reminded of something Dan Chung once said, that we naturally form ourselves into patterns. He was describing the way people will form unconscious patterns by the choices they make when sitting down ( so people might choose to skip a seat in order to retain personal space and in so doing form a checkerboard) but the observation works equally well for describing how we naturally look for such patterns.

And when it comes to interpreting advertisements this behaviour can be used (and is used) to great effect.

I couldn’t see a meaning, however. So I sent out a Tweet.

The socially aware guys over at confused.com came back to me saying that if I watched the TV ad then all would be made clear.

Why didn’t they tell me that on the billboard?

Maybe the TV ad would make it all clear. Maybe if I’d seen that first I would be more receptive to the billboard; receptive enough for it to give the old brand retention a dig in the elbow. The bus and underground ads show the real message and it’s a cool one. It makes sense, offers real incentive to use them by being appropriate to people’s lives – all a great campaign apart from the billboards. Which makes me wonder why they expected me to see those and run to a TV set to see what it all meant.

Which I didn’t.

Mainly because the imagery and approach weren’t interesting enough to compensate for the lack of message, the lack of reasons to engage that would prompt me to action. I work in the advertising world and so have a bit more motivation when it comes to pursuing this sort of thing. For others, advertising is an inconvenience; street furniture that can get in the way. They aren’t proactive.

This tendency to assume knowledge of a wider campaign isn’t a pecualiarity of teaser ads. Nor is it confined to confused.com (whose social media policy, incidentally, I admire). Look around at the billboards on your way to work and ask yourself whether you get their message and on what level.

MacDonalds have an ad running featuring a burger and the headline “The best things in life are 3″. Now of course I get that they sell burgers and I get the free/3 joke. But what does it mean? There is a pay-off line at the bottom of the ad with a list of ingredients but it doesn’t seem inclusive of all the real ingredients which make up the burger so I assume it’s part of an in-store promotion. But what in-store promotion? Do I get three items for a low price? Are there three really lovely new burgers to choose from? Or is it really just a burger with three ingredients (one of which is onion)? What? And why should I find out?

The message needs to be clear. And the message might be as simple as “remember our name” which is fine of course. Putting your brand out there for people to remember next time they go in-store is as worthy an aim as pushing a specific product or feature. The way in which they are achieved, however, differs greatly.

We are here again. Another company wants to rule the Internet. This time it is Apple with iTunes.

In the nineties it was Microsoft wanting to control the Internet but such small ambitions pass and companies settle down to middle age aspirations such as fast cars and curing malaria.

Apple’s youth, however, has been late in coming as they spent the nineties being way too cool to want to change the world.

Age catches us all and so it is their turn to be railing against the world. They know there is better way than all these scrappy attempts at usability and technology led by the high priests of Intel.

Standards and open source may have started the connected world but the push to mass market adoption has only ever been the result of more authoritarian mechanisms. Such as the blatant exploitation of power and position. Microsoft may not have had the purest of motives or the best of browsers back in the day, but they had a dream of a time when we would be too slack-jawed dumb in the face of shiny new products we only had to blink at in order to own.

Microsoft ‘failed’ of course. After the genie had been released to set up shop selling fake lamps. They still own the most used browser but they were damaged by lack of two things: innovation and standards.

Arguably they wouldn’t have reached the position they are at today if they’d waited for standards; ten years to get to HTML 5 has had Adobe teaching us about experiential usage of the net.

And don’t think Apple haven’t been watching all of this and learning.

They, more than most, understand the power of shiny. Their business model may screech about usability but really it’s about shiny.

Jonathan Ives brought them a whole lot of attention with shiny and only after that did he pave the way for today by stripping out the tech from MP3 players to give us something plainly usable. And shiny.

iTunes made all this possible of course. Hearing the frustrated screams of a billion consumers shouting “I just want to listen to music” Apple took the pain of ripping, levelling, organising and synching out of the fledgling digital music market to enable us all to just listen. Like we used to with the CD and cassette.

The trouble with standards, you see, is that they are a consensus achievement. And everybody involved has something they feel passionate about. This feature, they argue, will be beneficial.

They are probably right too. The trouble is that a consensus takes time to be reached. By the time we all agree some smart arse visionary has seized control of the country and forced us all to eat our greens.

And this is what standards has to contend with. It must deal with the fact that people want functionality and they want it as soon as someone is visionary enough to offer to it them. The majority of people don’t think about the issues behind monopolies. They just want to do the things they’ve been promised. Internet Explorer offered a simple way of getting on the internet. People jumped at it. I’ve had arguments with people about why what they did was wrong but the fact remains that nearly everybody I have argued with just doesn’t care. They should. But they don’t. They’d hand over the keys to their house if it meant a simpler, more fun-filled life.

The push for an open Web is a struggle against what people want most – for things to just work. Whilst others talk standards, the likes of Apple (and Adobe) are seducing us with cool. Microsoft would be alongside them, in front of them even, if it weren’t for their lack of innovation.

Many publishers are looking to Apple to help them out of the hole they’ve made in the Internet. The Cult of the Free hasn’t had as big an impact upon society as it one day could but its impact has still been sufficient to threaten high streets, the music industry and print media. If Apple can provide a gadget that people feel comfortable to buy stuff through again, well… there go the keys.

I have read a bold claim.

An agency claimed that a piece of creative they were responsible for had led to an increase in sales.

It might be true.

But the claim came on the back of the information that sales rose after the ad was aired.

So was it the creative?

Or was it just the media buy?

How do we know where responsibility lies?

The problem with making a claim is that once made, it is open to question. A designer who claims their logo concept boosts sales has to do so with confidence that the rest of the activity isn’t also having an affect.

Regardless of this, however, is a deeper question: what does advertising do?

My feeling is that advertising doesn’t sell…

It creates the urge to buy.

There’s a big difference. I’ve had arguments as to the effectiveness of advertising. Friends not wrapped up in the world of advertising claim that an advert has no effect on them; that it doesn’t influence them. The fact that companies are spending billions each year to reach people like them has no effect on the argument. They just insist they aren’t influenced and that’s that. Then they go and buy a BMW.

Whilst there is little doubt that many companies waste huge amounts of money on ineffectual advertising, it’s certainly not true to say adverts have no effect. Even as a barrage of messages upon our collective consciousness they have a cumulative effect.

What matters to me is whether that effectiveness is selling or creating the urge to buy.

The difference may seem pedantic but it governs the way we approach the creation of advertising.

I’m interested in choice. Or the lack of.

Any regular reader of this blog who ISN’T paid to read my ramblings may have noticed this. Whether I’m talking about the rise of the supermarket own brand and the way in which it elbows out brands who have spent the better part of a century worming their way into our homes; or the iPad with a gloomy eye to a single entertainment gateway and the way we will all willingly walk through it as a direct consequence of our genetic tendency to gather in mobs, choice is something that is often, in my mind, off the menu.

It’s easy to see this effect in the shops we use. Amazon, iTunes, ebay – the giants have set up store not so much along our most popular bus routes and busiest retail spaces in the way M&S did, but right in front of our eyes. They are hard to avoid and the lazy majority (guilty) don’t even bother trying.

Less easy to see, perhaps, is the same effect in products.

As a company, Head First are hired to promote video games, books, films and other entertainment products (all of which, increasingly, are sharing the same digital and promotional spaces using many of the same techniques to make them more visible to the consumer, quick-eyed as she is). In ten years of business, we have shepherded a large number of these products through our creative process and, from the middle of the forest, it rarely feels as though we are repeating ourselves.

I say this not to brag of the way in which we find unique solutions to our projects but to highlight the range and flow of product; and it’s apparent diversity.

Yes. Apparent diversity.

On the face of things you only have to walk into Game to see a wide array of products. Game after game lines the shelving, a barrage of action shots vying for your attention. But split these down into genre and choice begins to lessen.

Advertising is about finding a compelling reason to buy that the consumer can latch onto. As products seek to compete with each other these reasons often become marginalised. It may be a slight improvement in taste, a tweak of image or a reduction in price but the obsession with becoming the next big thing in Genre A takes over and genuine innovation takes a backseat.

It’s inevitable. Risk costs money. It costs more money to launch a new IP than to issue a sequel. With films this risk is lessened by the inclusion of a Star. Bruce Willis may be starring in the same old action flick time after time but hey, it’s Bruce Willis and we like him. So that succeeds. Bring in an unknown star and the film better have something unique about it for advertisers to sell us the concept. Think back to The Matrix and yes, Keanu was a star but the concept was something new(ish). So the marketing looked fresh, taking its cues not from the genre (sci-fi) but from the concept. The stylistic approach entered the lexicon and today we see parodies in all forms of product lines (Money Supermarket being the one that most springs to mind).

Just asking yourself how often this happens provides the clue as to the extent of diversity within what we consume. Books are wonderful at providing cutting edge graphic design for certain genres but they also know when to piggy-back another style. Because book marketing understands what some other products don’t – that people like their choice in one flavour: limited. Movie marketers know this as well of course which is why we all fall for the same old poster with the goofy guy and the gorgeous girl when it comes to finding a simple movie which EVERYONE will like (but which nobody really does).

As someone who writes advertising, this apparent contradiction intrigues and challenges me. It demands that I be blunt in the face of a brief’s assumptions of what is the product’s unique selling point and prepared to find new ways of helping make a product noticeable.

I keep on banging the choice drum. Boom, I say that the more we are exposed to choice the less choice we end up with. Boom, I say the more open markets are the fewer the shops end up operating them and now Boom, the more personalised our choices become the less we deviate away from them.

Watching Virtual Revolution on Saturday this concept was summed up (brilliantly and effectively) by Douglas Rushkoff as he explained how decision engines worked (the technology behind Amazon’s recommendation features amongst others). He ran through a programmatically logical structure of how the more we were presented with “people like you also bought” the more we became “people like us”.

It’s along the same principle of seeking out like-minded people to work with and be friends with.

I get the bus each morning. At 6:20 there aren’t many people in my village who do. In fact, generally speaking, there are five. Three of these people get on at my stop. Including myself. So, sociable being that I am I took two years to say hello to the other two. One is a postman, the other a cellar man. I didn’t realise pubs had people starting work at that time of a morning but apparantly they do.

Over the years we’ve enjoyed our ten minute chats. Much like Twitter, these shared moments build up into something far more than just a nod and a comment about the weather. Insights are gained, personal details shared and views occasionally (and tentatively) expressed.

The views aren’t always something I’m comfortable. Sometimes they are at the opposite end of the political fence where I sit, quite comfortably, knowing I am right in all things.

At one time it would have been enough to force me onto a later bus.

They hooked me, however, with their bonhomie. Many silent moments, a furtive nod of hello and a lifetime of isolation were banished simply by the two of them being nice. By showing an interest in my life and in sharing theirs.

I’d never have found them if I’d done a search for bus companions and been recommended like-minded people to share my journey with.

Now my bus buddies and I ignore what we have in common and celebrate our differences. If there were a search engine that told me what was different, even what I might hate – well I’d try that.