Behind the Buzz - digital and interactive advertising and marketing

Digitivity and Entertainment and Gaming

by Rachel on September 20th, 2007

Jeff Bell - Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business

• talking about Halo - was going to do a lot more, but it’s launching next week and it’s going to be the biggest opening day in entertainment history. We have 50% higher orders than Halo 2; bigger than Harry Potter and Spiderman
• You do not have to play the first 2 to enjoy the 3rd. (showed us Belief)

• what makes that interesting was that the first piece only shown on the web. We have a series of 5 testimonials to go online,
• we built the diorama for the ads- 25*25ft, we built it, like a museum piece, looking back at the battle.
• Iris was one of the things that makes the launch unique
• we did an online multimedia experience
• we put a fake ad on bestbuy ad, 400k people visited the website. They trippled visits to Halo3.com.
• We seeded flood control service, fake ads on craigslist and on windows live. 300k people called the number and received the info on how to solve the puzzle.
• through MSM and Samsung mobile, we gave a ringtone - play in PC and it unlocks a website
• put fake book on Amazon which led to a site - using 18th century encryption
• fake map we posted, with clues to locations..we projected may with co-ords for final website
• 1.5million people participated
• we have 1.6million pre-orders for the game.
• So how do we consider connected entertainment?
• we see a world that is increasingly connected. we look across at people, learning, creating, being productive, communcation, entertainment etc. at PC, in the living room, on the go
• we are looking for an end-to-end experience across the whole spectrum. Play one thing, play it anywhere, across all areas. Thinking about comms and community and identity - something we are focused on doing. With Xbox, with Zune, Mobile, Vista
• Xbox - in living room, where you can mail and IM and a whole lot more.
• Gamertags - you can have as many as you want - each associated with a Live ID. Reputation based; it is closed garden, higher levels of security than open web, better control than the web. It’s got censorship for all the elements based on your zoning. this segments the audience - allows you to target. (censorhip here refers to control about content, ads, IM messges, media etc. Pick a family zone, will get family content
• We have messenger on the site - with a keyboard for the controller.
• Ads on the console - all sold by MS - can be placed throughout the experience. You can get great metrics back within the closed environment of 7m Live users. Hi install base. Seemless experience across the platforms for the advertisers.
• Game demos - we encourage partners to play the demos - 40% of players will buy the game. Download trials - 60% buy game. 5-10dollars. for arcade game, We are growing beyond the 18-34 demo, to more family etc
• Achievements are good for stickiness of community. People like seeing accomplishments
• We have a lot of retro titles and we are bringing out a lot of new stuff
• Media is most new and interesting - music - can connect the Zune wifi. Can play Zune via living room. Getting new Zunes this year - smaller, larger capacity, new video content. Will revolutionise the whole digital music and entertainment space.
• Can buy tv shows and films. We are the largest HD download in the US; we are the second largest download overall. Have 243 movies in HD. takes several hours to download (bandwidth). FamilyGuy is No.1 (18-34 demo). In movies, anything we put up does well, LakeHouse to 300. Wide selection. Advertising on platform does well.
• All xboxes 360 will connect to a Media machine - so can stream to 360 from PC.
• How do we view brands?
• Step 1 - Build World Class Brands. Deliver what customers want, need and aspire to, make a difference in peoples lives, demonstrate alignment between external words and internal actions. great brands make outrageous and eternal promises. we empower people to pursue their passion with XBox. It’s about Joy - Jump into Joy’
• Manage the Portfolio of brands - we are just getting into consumer marketing, allowing seamless experience across brands.
• How do we Monetise? Subscriptions - 4million on Xbox, same model for games for windows live on PC; Purchase via points. goes across all platforms. Ad exposure through Massive - 100 games will have Massive this holiday. Dynamically presented ads in-game. Can change the ad content across the games - same buy, diff creative. Partnerships are strong - eg Burger King games, we built for them. Customised gaming on a large scale online as well. We do cross media deals - we promoted Special Weapons for Discovery, they promoted Gears of War.
• We participate actively across the blogs, the media, we are open for commentary, satire and questions. We integrate our properties with our ads. have 1.7m/week uniques.

Q: whose the best salesforce to work with? A: we have integrated it into a single salesforce, everything together.

Q: how about innovating? How can we work with you to build new stuff? A: Sales team - keep pushing them, they can bring in people as required, interested in branded entertainment, partnerships. We believe that many games are like playing movies - Bioshock, Mass effect. Story telling is unique..we want to get to episodes as well, really rich story telling.

Q: branded games? A: it takes a minimum of 6 months and is not free. there is demand. Look at white labels, look at re-skinning - that is easier way to get in. Building auto games with anticipation that we can bring new models in to partner with builders.

Q: how do you use community to promote products? A: we own the hardcore. People who define themselves as playing games - real gamers. we have 700k people daily to MyXbox on Xbox.com. We do make these people available to advertisers; we ad on XBox.com. they tend to love it when advertisers sponsor tournaments, activities, contest. Fine with Old Spice as a prize to play games. Happy to get Subway as prizes for playing Pacman. We do a lot of direct marketing - emails.

Q: What’s effective? A: product placement, in game 46% more likely to buy…double intent if have placement and an ad for it. they would rather see real things in reality based games. Integration is key.

Q: 45+ and female? How do we approach these people? A: MSN Arcade has 27m registered and playing games. Board games and puzzles are favourites. over 40% of sports game are women. 18-34 is closer to 50/50 mix. Wii is bringing on a whole new group of people - great things! Don’t discount MSN there are a lot of opportunities

Q: how is Avenue A getting involved. A: I work with AKQA for Iris…so Ave A can have a id, but are not required. They bought it to maintain a cutting edge of technologies, to test out technologies with new programmes for clients. Agency model is very different to our model - we think about platforms - windows succeeds when people build on the platform. Ave A grow by growing people and new clients.

Q: is interactive gaming spreading differently in different places A: humans enjoy joy. It’s true everywhere - but how they do it is different. We can help leapfrogging - move to wireless, full colour, digital. More PC based than console, We believe IPTV is a tipping point. We are a major provider, with partners of that technology. XBox more inline with full digital lifestyle, In China, In India.

Tags: xbox, xbox360, ingame+advertising

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POSTED IN: Advertisments, Alternate Reality Experience, Conferences and Events, Entertainment Marketing, Fun and Games, Integrated and Transmedia Marketing, PR