Samsung Mobile fail to deliver

Yesterday I encountered a great example of placing your final goal before you have engaged your audience, and ruining the whole experience. Thank you Samsung Mobile.

Having received an email about an Easter Egg Hunt where you must solve cryptic clues in order to win a phone I willingly followed the link hoping for some brain twisting fun.


Arriving on the main page there are buttons to “Play” or “Register”. Fine by me, I’ll play, and if it is any good, I’ll register.

But no!

After clicking on play I’m shown the following exciting page…


Being busy, I then went back to reading the rest of my emails. I can only hope that the puzzles are sent to your mobile and that is why you need to log in. Even so, having some puzzles shown on a virtual mobile online to start with may have engaged me enough to sign up for the rest of the game. Alternatively, a "Play as guest" mode would have been good. Then I might have registered to show off my brilliance or claim a prize.

Fun first, message second!

Is the "G" word about to vanish again?

Sticky Content > Viral marketing > Advergames > Casual Games > App (?)

It appears someone I’ve never met has gone and changed the name of the product my company makes, again. Great. So before the word “Game” vanishes beneath another layer of marketing talk, let’s look back on its ten-year rise to becoming a serious enough business application to be renamed to just three letters.

The rise of Sticky Content

Ten years ago a small and forward thinking group of companies (including 4T2 where I work) started to create mini games in Macromedia Flash. The Internet back then was a predominantly a boring place to surf and this new technology was helping us to inject a little fun – even over a 56k modem.

When releasing these games we soon found that third party websites were taking this content and placing it on their own sites to entertain their visitors. At first our clients resisted such use of their campaigns, worried about “bandwidth theft” and losing control of their content.

The unfortunate term “sticky content” started to become prolific and online games began to show their true potential.

By 2001, MiniClip was becoming very popular by collating and sponsoring as many of these online games as possible and offering them to third parties - “free games for your site”. MilkAndCookies.com also started to show up in log files. This site allowed American students to instantly and freely submit any online content that they thought would be of interest to their friends. At some stage in the future, some clever marketing type would call this “Social Bookmarking”.

Industry recognition was gained by your game being at the top of the all-important Lycos Viral Charts.

With a relatively small number of quality online games being produced, content placement was free. You could also generate amazing national PR because of the originality of your promotions.

Viral Marketing catches on

In 2002, companies like 4T2 were touring advertising and PR agencies educating them to the benefits this style of marketing offered. The agencies we worked for at the time were still nervous about using the “G” word in meetings, so told us to refer to it as “Viral marketing”. I guess it sounded more expensive. The theory was that one person would play your game, and, if they liked it, tell two of their friends about it. This would of course lead to an explosion in traffic (note to self – really must find the time to update our company website and my blog as it is full of this stuff!).

To promote “viral spread” (and keep the people in fancy London offices happy) 4T2 spent time building mini-leagues and other fiendish social networking devices into our games. None of this ever made any noticeable impact to traffic figures but it was a lesson we needed to learn. Getting our clients’ games listed on a selection of popular websites was a much more cost-effective use of our time.

This reality led to media owners joining the party and commercialising content placement. For example, if Lycos found a brand name in the game you submitted to their site they would no longer add it for free. Bugger.

By 2003, 4T2 were producing enough “virals” for well known brands such as Comet and Vauxhall that we plucked up the courage to start using the dreaded “Game” word in meetings – in fact, it was becoming expected.

Advergaming hits the big time

By the end of 2005, there was a huge raft of new media agencies offering “advergames”. The “viral” branding must have died out due to the fact it was mainly pony. By this stage 4T2 were privileged enough to have The LEGO Company as our main client so did not have to worry as much about game seeding, allowing us to concentrate on the marketing aspect of our work. Instead we focused on “360 degree marketing”: driving traffic between media by publishing unlock codes on product packaging, movie trailers and point of sale units that gave access to additional content within online campaigns. A similar approach focused on driving traffic between TV shows and related online content. For example, our planning meetings with GMTV Kids now revolved around what actions we could put into an online game that could actually be performed by their presenters in real life so the content matched perfectly.

Casual Gaming becomes the trend

In 2008, the term ‘Casual Gaming’ started to be heard to a much greater extent. Previously, I had associated this with low cost games a user purchased after playing a demo. Almost overnight, ‘advergames’ seemed to have become a sub-category of this field.

By now the commercialisation of game based websites had hit a new level, with Spil Games purchasing many existing websites and a selection of expensive domains. Two new models for brands to pay for game placement became commonplace based either on guaranteed visitor levels or a pay-per-play format.

On the other side of the coin, social gaming websites such as Kongregate and Newgrounds had become fully established marketing tools in their own right. By offering free game placement and a selection of APIs to integrate high score tables and achievements these sites built a huge following. The ability for games creators to take revenues from these sites by joining their advertising schemes was a huge benefit for student developers all around the world. Being at the top of the Lycos Chart was replaced by the honour of becoming a featured game on Newgrounds.

Will “App” be the next name change?

In 2009 the name for what 4T2 build seems to be changing again. Already this year we have received three separate briefs to build “Apps”. The trend seems to be led by an iPhone TV advert that featured Super Monkey Ball, and the growing requirement for Social Networking game integration. Apparently, because a game needs to be playable on Facebook, it must only be referred to as an App. Helping to consolidate this change of title is also the growing requirement for game creation systems such as YoYo Games and PlayCrafter. After all, if we are leaving it up to the end users to build their own games using some form of clever construction kit, surely the developer is creating an App?

Another, more disturbing possibility, is that the Credit Crunch has once again made agencies scared of using the “G” word. Is an “App” more commercially viable?
Will this catch on? Who knows? One thing is for certain – don’t spend too much on your printed marketing material as it will be out-of-date very quickly! So to conclude, here are the top three lessons I have learned over the last ten years:

3) Save your time, sanity and budget - place your content where the traffic you want is currently residing. Don’t try to push people to a new location for no apparent reason.

2) Test your games with your target audience before releasing them to ensure they actually are fun for people outside of your office.

1) 4T2 make online GAMES. Beware of using product titles that do not contain the G word as they will tempt you into focusing on the marketing aspects of your campaign, or an over complex method of increasing spread. Above all you must make sure your campaign is fun, or it will fail.

Brand Strategy Article in full

I'd like to thank Brand Strategy (November issue) for using my piece promoting advergames in their magazine. The counter argument by Jonathan Salem Baskin (The author of "Branding Only Works on Cattle) also makes very interesting reading. I actually think some of his points are similar to mine. Thanks also to Dan Mascall for locating this opportunity for me. Anyway - Here is the unedited (sorry) version of my piece. It's worth noting I wrote it two months ago. Already many things have moved on....

Everyone wants to win

The fundamental success of gaming is due to everyone’s desire to beat their rivals and impress their peers - To experience the thrill of achieving an easily identifiable victory in a World where real life success can be hard to gauge.

Advergaming taps into these motivations and uses them to create an online experience that supports specific marketing objectives. Gaming can be used to drive brand awareness, educate about product features or provide compelling calls to action. Conventional marketing campaigns struggle to compete for the attention of a passive audience. Advergaming uses basic psychology to guarantee the audience actively participates in the brand experience and has fun while doing it.

From the marketer’s perspective, advergames allow your audience to feel an instant positive emotion directly connected to your campaign content. For example, consider an online racing game where you can pick up a new set of branded tyres half way around the track that improve your virtual car’s grip.
“Wow – I won!” and all because of the benefit of that product. Now I’ll challenge my friends to beat my lap time, encouraging them to share the brand experience (and appreciate my glorious achievement!).

What turns a game into a successful marketing tool?

Organisations as diverse as charities, drinks manufacturers and political parties have all used advergaming to promote their messages. The most successful campaigns follow three fundamental rules:

1. Fun first, message second. Whatever your game concept, it must be entertaining. You want people to instantly enjoy their experience and share it with their friends. Don’t bury the potential for fun beneath bland marketing messages or overt sales objectives. For example, several campaigns have failed because they ask for the participant’s email address before he or she is emotionally engaged with the game and willing to part with any personal data. Virtual Worlds that insist on a user joining before giving them access to any fun content can suffer a similar fate.

2. Choose a simple promotional message. The player’s primary focus will be on completing the game, so don’t expect them to remember anything too complicated. Large amounts of information don’t sit well in an entertainment-driven format.

3. Incentivise response. Good advergames will incentivise the player to perform a set action after participation and reward them for taking that next step. For example, a Monty Python themed campaign for Spam asked users to enter product barcode numbers in return for unlocking various in-game enhancements. Last year the Telegraph’s Fantasy Football Game rewarded participants with player transfers for entering code words found in the paper.

The rise of social networking gaming

An advergame has greater intrinsic entertainment value than most marketing content. This gives you a lot of leverage when it comes to ensuring return on investment. For example, third parties may be willing to promote your game for free via their website because it gives them a way to entertain their own audiences. Their motivations may be kudos, personal allegiance to your brand, or to generate revenue by placing their own advertising around your content. They would be unlikely to consider a similar deal with more conventional marketing content.

This means that a few days spent ‘seeding’ an advergame on relevant websites can produce high volume traffic far more cost-effectively than paid-for advertising. (MIKES NEW COMMENT - This is changing VERY fast at the moment and will probably be no longer be true by the end of the year in the UK)
A new wave of social network websites specialising in games such as Newgrounds.com and Kongregate.com make this seeding very simple. These sites allow anybody to upload their content for free, combining professionally created advergames with material added by highly skilled and passionate amateurs.

A wealth of ideas, instant feedback and recognition can be gained by participating in these communities. Just as importantly, they provide a shop window for the thousands of other sites looking for free, interactive content for their own properties.

If you want to understand how these social network sites will develop in the future, turn on an Xbox and make some new friends. You will soon experience the pride of being personally invited to participate in a team game by other people on the Xbox network who are impressed by your skills.

In terms of marketing strategy, there’s obviously a balance to be struck between the free traffic to be gained through social gaming networks and the need to control the context in which your campaign is viewed and the profile of the audience you attract. However, the ability to drive high volumes of traffic and engage that audience in a richly interactive experience makes seeding a powerful technique.

But what makes a great game?

Of course, to be successful advergaming relies on creating highly addictive and enjoyable games in the first place. Some brands find games fit naturally with their ethos and style. Others may dismiss games as not suitable for their target audience or messages. However, there are remarkably few brands where an effective advergaming strategy cannot be devised. Here are some pointers to consider when brainstorming ideas:

· Target audience: set aside the notion that advergames will only appeal to children or computer geeks. The online gaming demographic has broadened significantly in the last couple of years. For example short-format ‘casual games’ attract a significant audience of women in their 30s and 40s, whilst games such as Scrabulous on Facebook re-introduced traditional board games to the social networking population. Similarly, advergames can be used to attract any audience you want, as long as you pick the correct genre. The successful “Dyson Telescope Game” and the RNLI’s recent “Brain Waves” campaign both utilised puzzle-based formats to attract an adult female audience. Games for young males lean towards racing and shooting challenges.

· Nostalgia and originality – everyone’s played with a paper aeroplane in their past and yet that didn’t stop 200 million of them being thrown via an online advergame created to promote Microsoft Flight Simulator. Giving a new twist to an established game format is very effective. The audience will immediately understand the basic game objective and enjoy the feeling of nostalgia it may evoke. At the same time they can admire the novel elements and creativity of your particular version

· Utilising existing rivalries – GMTV’s Toonattik.tv website asks children to score points for either the boys’ or girls’ team. This encourages kids to keep playing to ensure their team is victorious each week. Sporting loyalties, professions, countries and age groups can all be used in this way to build a sense of competitive spirit and give people a reason to want to keep playing

· Personalisation - many commercial games including Spore and Little Big Planet now allow users to completely personalise their gaming experience. This helps the game to stand out from the crowd and drives player loyalty. Sophisticated personalisation is now also within the scope of advergames. For example, the latest LEGO BIONICLE online game allows children to create new levels and share their creations with others. This has the added bonus of increasing the lifespan of the promotion as the challenge to other players is continually growing.

The future of advergaming

Walkers Crisps recently demonstrated that big brands are willing to push the concept of user-generated content even further by launching their “Invent the next flavour” competition. Getting your audience to collaborate with you in shaping the future of your brand is an enormously powerful technique. In the gaming world, new software and online tools are making it ever easier for enthusiasts to build their own games with high production values. In the near future I predict this trend will extend towards “Designagaming”. The more adventurous brands will run competitions for the public to create advergames on their behalf. The money previously used for content creation will be switched to prizes for the most successful games and building libraries of assets for willing developers to utilise. Why have one campaign when your target audience can create a hundred different variations, all competing to become your most effective marketing material?

A more imminent development will be the impact of the growing number of virtual worlds being launched by brands such as LEGO and MTV to compete with Second Life and World of Warcraft. These projects represent the natural evolution of the online gaming experience and offer enormous marketing potential. A good quality advergame currently has an average session time of around ten minutes. But if the same game is presented as an integral part of a virtual world, then the capacity for a brand to engage and entertain the visitor online can be extended indefinitely. You may never want to leave a branded virtual world if the game content inside is good enough.