HEAD BLOG

The bandwagon gets a rough ride. Jump on board and everyone thinks you’re being lazy. The bandwagon haters form their own to ride alongside you and throw insults in your path.

It’s a fad, a phase, the next big thing. The bandwagon is, they say, where the also-ran sits, the followers, the sheep. Don’t ride the bandwagon because you’ll never find your way home to the cool stuff.

So iPhones and social media are what to avoid, hate Flash and eBooks. They have none of those on the anti-bandwagon bandwagon. Go your own way and travel with us.

But you’re in Marketing, they say, so what can we expect. The things we like don’t need marketing. Paper books and cathode ray tellys, open source systems and food from the bins. These are a few of our favourite things.

They are wrong though. The bandwagon isn’t such a bad place to be. Sure it gets crowded but what’s wrong with that? If you’ve something to say you need people to hear. A wagon full of people enjoying a trend or a movement or a product isn’t such a bad place to be. We all have to spend our leisure time doing something and if other people are drawn to a particular thing then maybe, just maybe there’s something to it. Something worth participating in, something worth enjoying alongside others.

It’s not all bad, this like-minded thing.

Yes, the bandwagon is fine form of transport. Hitch yourself to it and see where it takes you.

Rocking the grass verges and lowland passes there is nothing your intrepid reporter will not do to bring you the very latest in marketing buzz.

This week we are in Grasmere, enjoying a short break with my family and yet still finding time to be chained by the eyeballs to the world of marketing.

Grasmere, as any walker under the age of seventy five will know (and those older will just ignore) is as heavily branded a place as Paris or New York. The locals know what draws people to its grassy shores and willingly regale with tales of rushbearing and fellrunning (the closest to which yours truly gets is when stumbling arse over hat after his lunch bag). A shop selling ‘Herdy’ the latest mascot for these parts offers tourists a more modern, branded slice of Lake District life and locally made jams and chutneys line the mouths of children.

Everywhere you turn is a piece of slate engraved with that damn daffodil poem (I’m more of a Coleridge man myself) and only the garden centre seem to stand against local custom with their admirable range of Japanese shrubbery.

Walking through the graveyard on the sunniest of days, I even overheard a teacher giving her charges a masterclass in branding by pointing out the reasons why Sarah Nelson’s Gingerbread was so successful. No, not taste and customer service but a face. A wizened old lady lending her increasing senility to the promotion of spiced biscuits has done almost as much for Grasmere as that Wordsworth hack.

Of ocurse marketing is hard to escape from. If we are to keep our villages as History intended then they must suffer the attentions of the marketing agency in order to draw people in to spend their money. The trick is not letting the marketing overtake the actual charm a place has to offer.

Then, as the sun began to set beneath the postcard hills, a sales assistant in authentic black dress, white apron and Top Shop bag trekked home just as she would a hundred years ago.

You just can’t escape to the country anymore.

Collaboration, not crowd sourcing, is the future of advertising.

Crowd sourcing is directed from a brand manager or agency creative.

And that’s an important word: directed. The Doritos campaign was directed and the ‘public’ did as they were told, expressing themselves beautifully, wittily but doing so in a controlled, managed, directed way.

When a client approaches a number of agencies to request ideas in the form of a pitch it is, in essence, crowd sourcing ideas from a limited pool of creativity. The advantage an agency can have over others (and the public) is experience.

Each agency can draw upon its experience to respond by building a compelling argument as to why their ideas are better, regardless of whether their ideas are, in fact, actually better. It becomes a game of personalities in which ideas are judged on what is likely to win with the client rather than succeed with the consumer.

Collaboration, on the other hand, is freer, more open and more targetted at the end result. The process is fluid enough to change according to that end result. What might be perceived as key selling points are open to change under the process of collaboration.

Personalities are focussed on producing something that works for the consumer rather than satisfying a predefined brief.

Collaborators, removed from the competitive process, are focussed upon pooling resources and figuring out how to get the best results (and even agree how those results ought to be measured).

It’s all part of forging a great relationship with the client and, whilst I accept that crowd sourcing has a certain energetic pleasure, it’s in the relationships that effective work will be produced. The energy offered by crowd sourcing is akin to the enjoyment of a pub wit. It’s fun at the time but makes very little impact in the long term and social marketing has to be about the long term. It has to be about the relationships over the casual acquaintence otherwise there is no depth, no substance and no loyalty.

Society functions effectively in true, deep rooted communities.

Not crowds.

It’s coming soon and the way Microsoft seem to be promoting it, you’d be fooled into thinking this is an upgrade to Nintendo’s groundbreaking Wii. All the elements pioneered by Nintendo are there. The sofa, the smiling family playing nicely together, the bright lights, the large living room – everything has been designed to make you reach for your Wii-mote. Even the style of gaming is less of the hardcore action normally associated with Microsoft and more of the Grandparent/Kid friendly barnstorming Nintendo throw out.

It makes you think that all those Wii owners (and would-be Wii owners) will soon be upgrading on the promise of a controller free, gaming heaven.

I’m not so sure.

I think Nintendo is more than just a company producing games consoles. It is an approach and its philosophy goes beyond the sofa. When a non-gamer (or casual gamer as we all call them these days) sees a Wii they see simplicity. The Wii box is elegant but it’s unobtrusive. It’s something they can identify with because, unlike the Xbox 360, it doesn’t look challenging. I love the Xbox, it’s a great machine. But as someone with decreasing amounts of time to spend playing games it does throw up barriers to entry. An XBox game, by and large, has to be deeper and more satisfying than (say) Carnival Games on the Wii (great game by the way).

It may just be down to perception but the casual gamer doesn’t see the Xbox as a quick time filler. It’s an investment in time and energy. That’s not a bad thing of course. Millions of gamers wouldn’t want it any other way. Wii is just a different beast.

Flying in the face of convergence, a games console seems to be more than just the software it offers. Of course Carnival Games would work on Natal. It would work on most platforms. But delivering the right experience to the right audience is more than just a software issue. It’s a perception issue also and it will be interesting to see how Microsoft become grandparent friendly without alienating the more hardcore gamers out there.

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?

The launch trailer for The Mysteries of Little Riddle is now live on the internet so I thought I could share it with everyone via the HeadBlog.

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This project has been one of the most interesting of the year, not because of the game (which looks fabulous) but because of what it represents.

Video games, generally speaking, are written by “developers” and then published by “publishers” in much the same way as authors and publishers generally work. Big publishers such as THQ, Capcom, EA etc are great at bringing games to market. They provide an expertise of marketing but also they provide the funds necessary to get it, well, published. It takes a lot of money to fund games these days. A lot of money to keep the developer going, a lot to pay out to the makers of the console and then a lot to market it to as wide an audience as possible.

But things are changing.

The easiest example of this taking place can be seen on the App Store (Apple’s online store for it’s iPhone applications). These are beginning to be created and released by tiny teams with virtually no marketing budget. They have a willing audience who are looking to purchase and, for the most part, rely on the brilliance of their design as their best advertisement.

The technology involved means that this approach, for now, is possible.

And it is being followed by other consoles such as XBox Marketplace and PlayStation Network. Increasing numbers of people are opting to buy direct via digital download rather than through traditional retails.

But the rush to digital marketplaces and the compartive ease by which products can be created means that there is now an awful lot of products are being released.

Apple make this a bragging point – something like 100,000 apps are now available through them.

But turn it around and say you have one of the 100,000 apps. You are faced with a problem.

You need to make your product stand out.

Because increasingly we are seeing the big brands make it to the front page. So Jamie Oliver’s cooking app is up there and it’s there not because it’s the best cooking app in the world but because it is easily recognised. It’s a brand.

Which leaves lots of cooking apps, like the one my Mum might write, going cold. Not because they are worse, but because we live in a world where big brands are pushed over better products.

So my Mum now needs to make her cooking app which will actually stir your sauce for you*, stand out.

Which means, well, marketing.

And those one person developer teams might be able to do that on their own or they might need create a streamlined marketing process.

Relentless Software are doing this with Blue Toad Murder Files and Head First have been proud to work on it with them. For us it shows what a knowledgeable agency can do to help make a point of difference because, unlike in the days where all you had to do was place a print ad in a specialist magazine, now you have different issues. Bringing games to market in the era of digital downloads is just as challenging as it was in the days of those old fashioned things called shops.

These days you might not know where your consumer is. They might not be browsing the sites you think they are browsing. They might be watching TV whilst texting. They might be using Messenger whilst listening to the radio.

So you need to be clever. Or cleverer. You need to create advertising which can be passed on. Which is fun and entertaining in its own right and which has a message which can be adapted to suit the medium.

It’s an old-fashioned idea really.

And it still works.

*not even remotely true.

When I sit down to write an ad or plan a campaign I can spend an hour or two browsing the Internet. Some people might recognise this behaviour as evasion but I like to call it the search for inspiration.

I’ll avoid the usual advertising temples and wander instead to sites that can take my mind away from the blank page before me. These sites could be great little bookshops or they could be this one, The British Larder. Read more…

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a big hit. I’d wager that it has high visibility in the general populace and that you’d be hard pressed to find a “gamer” who hadn’t heard of it – regardless of whether they would consider buying it or not.

The PR on this game has been extraordinary.

It was only whilst walking past the billboard that I wondered about the game’s advertising strategy. What is the big idea behind it? Does it, in fact, need one when it’s clearly going to sell (and has sold) millions?

It made me ask around and do a quick survey on what makes people want to buy the game and here is a selection of the comments I received back:

* because i love CoD

* I bought it to be a social animal as my friends list are all on it and I missed the boat on MW1

* I’ll almost certainly get it at the weekend when I know I’ll have the time to play it properly.

* nope can’t say I’ve heard of it.  seen the tv ads for some war games but couldn’t name them – look cool though.

* yes, it was in the free paper I read on the train the other day

Those comments come from a range of people (all men, incidentally) who are a mixed bunch of gamers, ex-gamers, very casual gamers and non-gamers. Not surprisingly the gamers had all heard of MW2 and all expressed a desire to own it. Some were keen to get it as quickly as possible (some had bought it on pre-order) and others, whilst keen, were happy to hold off the purchase until it suited them.

The casual and ex-gamers had registered the fuss and, at best, acknowledged its good looks. They were’t moved to buy it especially if that meant having to buy the console to go with it. For them, this wasn’t the game that would drag them into the joys of modern gaming.

So that made me even more curious. The game is fabulous. It’s selling by the bucketload. It’s being launched into a climate where interest in modern warfare is high and it has a budget behind it that brings video game marketing in line with film marketing.

That’s when I began to look at the advertising in a little more detail and found very little in the way of sophisticated communication or strategy. I felt the PR and so had my core sampling of casual gamers but the advertising was something else altogether.

It was, at best, a clear example of support strategy. It’s role, as far as I can tell, is to remind us that the game is out there and that it is big enough to warrant an outdoor spend. On TV the visuals are stunning – to the gamer who, as we know from my detailed research (ahem) were sold early on by the strength of the brand and the advance word generated by PR.

Activision won’t be grumbling over the sales of course. It made over $300 million in 24 hours (take THAT film industry) – who would grumble with that?

But I’m drawn back to the advertising because it could have done more. Actually, it could have done something. It talks to the initiated leaving the unintiated to stare at the image of a soldier. This could be for any war game. The cover art is lovely – moody and violent and beautifully realised by the design agency (or perhaps by Infinity Ward themselves).

But packaging is not advertising and this could have been a marvellous opportunity. There is no big idea, no added value to the advertising. Essentially it is a picture and a logo and why pay an agency for that?

And then all this leaves me wondering about something. If another publisher had pushed out a cheaper, similarly packaged game at the same time how would it have fared? Would it have benefitted from Modern Warfare’s generic advertising strategy?

Research conducted by EEDAR and highlighted by Games Industry Biz “shows” marketing plays more of a role in shifting product than reviews.

This stirred up a bit of a fuss. Nobody likes to believe marketing affects them. Least of all the journalists who hope their reviews carry weight.

So The Guardian came back with their view which was that by looking at the top selling games they had discovered a correlation between high sales and good reviews.

Both camps are correct. Marketing does drive sales and so do reviews.

And it all comes down to Dan Brown.

The way a marketing spend is decided is by sales projections. If a sales team thinks they can get high numbers of sales for a product then it will get a higher marketing spend.

Why do they think it will get high numbers of sales? Because they believe it’s a good game.

Now, what do you think happens with a good game?

It reviews well.

There’s a correlation there.

But correlation doesn’t always indicate causality.

When the publishers of Dan Brown’s latest book got together do you think they said “this is going to review brilliantly”? Did they (or even Mr Brown himself) believe for one minute that critics were going to gush over his literary style and elegant wordplay?

Doubtful.

But they knew that it had mass appeal because The DaVinci Code was a mass appeal hit because the marketing of that book concentrated on the controversial aspect of religion and conspiracy. Which we all love. The easy, child-like style of the book may have helped also.

What both articles could be interpreted as showing is the lack of quality marketing for titles which may not review well but which could have mass appeal. Or maybe it shows the lack of titles with true, Dan Brown mass appeal.

Could a marketing department have created the Internet?

Could a marketing department have created the wind up radio?

Could a marketing department have created space war and with it the entire video game industry?

There was a little bit of fuss last night when Alex Bogusky highlighted a poor review of his book ‘Baked In’. The review was far from glowing and called the book “half baked”.

Witty stuff.

Beneath the easy point, however, the writer (Dan Neil) went on to suggest that whilst marketing has a place in product design, it is ludicrous to believe that marketing departments could originate product.

Twitter user @adsoftheworld disagreed saying:

New products should indeed originate from marketing dept.

Consider this post an analysis not of the book (more of which at the end) but of this one claim.

For me, the idea that marketing departments should be responsible for creating product seems to stem from a couple of places:

Firstly the place we’ve all been as creative people, namely around the table after the client has left. Here, before we begin to hammer out a reasoned campaign we might, perhaps, point out the if-onlys. If only the product did this, if only the product did that. If only the client had come to us first.

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve solved deep political issues after a two minute news broadcast.

The other place in which marketing’s place in product design is assured is

Yet the reason so much marketing is ineffective isn’t all down to poor product design or a lack of integrated narrative between marketing and design, it’s also down to poor marketing. Bad strategy, lazy creative, poor communication – marketing doesn’t always get it right. Even when the best and the brightest are involved.

Much of the so-called creativity we see from marketing is box ticking, consumer tested strategy. It rarely sidesteps perceived wisdom to deliver something astounding. It works with known understanding of consumer behaviour. It plays to our shopping weaknesses.

Does product design do the same?

Sometimes.

Sometimes it comes out of the blue. Sometimes an inventor is just trying to find a way to make her life better.

Then it occurs to them that it could improve the lives of others.

That’s when they approach marketing.

Because, well, that’s what marketing is there for.

To bring a product to market.

The idea that marketable ideas come, or ought to come from the marketing department omits one thing: history.

A marketing department couldn’t have created the Internet because it wasn’t a product to sell. Commercial potential came afterwards.

A marketing department couldn’t have created the wind up radio. Who is going to invest money in thinking how to help poor people?

And a basic game that ran on a machine which would never be available in shops?

I wouldn’t have thought of that.

But I am interested in buying the book. That’s the role Bogusky exploited when he shared the poor review of his book.