Wednesday 29 August 2012

When branding becomes more than just a game

Picture the scene. You’re relaxing at home, catching up with friends on Facebook, playing a game, doing your best to escape from the realities of the outside world. You need to earn a bonus to move yourself up to the next level and just as you’re about to do so, a brand pops up on screen and offers to provide it for you. Irritating or inspired? Well, soon we may have the opportunity to find out because the move into the gaming sphere represents the latest response by advertisers to embrace new techniques to ensure that their advertisements are noticed. Not only has Amazon announced that it is going to start creating games in a bid to earn itself a slice of the $6.2bn social gaming sector, but one of its competitors in the field, King, is to introduce a new in-game ad format that will allow brands to pay to associate themselves with boosts or extra lives. It is easy to see why this could be tempting for brands. King claims that advertising across its gaming network could help brands reach over 30 million, predominantly female game players across Europe and the United States. But how will we, as consumers, feel towards this latest potential move by brands into another area of our private lives and leisure time? We have become accustomed to using technology to bypass advertisements and sponsorship messages, most obviously through the ability to digitally record television and then fast forward. However, when it comes to television or radio, consumers are generally passive, compared to gaming, when they are arguably at their most active. The key, I suspect, will be in the role played by the brand in-game and how heavy-handed that branding might be. Relevant in-game branding - for example a sports brand being represented within a sports stadium environment would seem to be a pertinent even subliminal fit (though the advertiser may argue “too subliminal”). With exposure this subtle and fitting, we would anticipate that it would enhance consumer perceptions of the brand. Research has, in the past, supported this view. An IAB survey in 2007 found that 86% of gamers were happy to see ads placed within games if it brought down the prices they had to pay, whilst a third said they would be either quite likely or very likely to buy a product they had seen advertised while playing.Only 14% said that ads ruined the gaming experience. Interestingly, 40% said that ads in games made them more realistic while 27% said that interacting with a brand during the game, such as gaining more energy by drinking a can of an energy drink, did not constitute advertising. However, if the brand is repeatedly associated with an event within the game that itself becomes frustrating, the player’s perception of the brand is likely to suffer by association. If in-game advertising is realistic, contextual and non-intrusive, it offers great potential to brands. But, beware, because if you get the context wrong, the downside for the brand could be significant.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Do we need an Olympic ideal for business?

Tell the truth, you must have taken a step away from your work for a few minutes at some point over the past week to cheer on Bradley Wiggins, Chris Hoy, Mo Farrah or Jessica Ennis, or perhaps just as importantly to cheer on and admire the athletes who may have missed out on medals but have achieved personal bests. But does it, can it and should it have the power to inspire us in our business lives and, if so, are we harnessing it to best effect? It has clearly had an effect on one of my colleagues at Engage Research who admitted having Bradley Wiggins firmly in mind as she cycled to work, achieving a personal best by knocking a couple of minutes off of her usual commuting time. The reality, of course, is that the Olympics are transient and, come September, will be little more than a happy summer memory. Many brands will already have found ways to tap into the current mood of hope and inspiration, to promote the Olympic ideal of being the best you can be. However, soon we will return to the reality of our economic circumstances, in which case some of the traits that set an Olympian aside could be transferrable to a business environment and could have a positive impact on the way we work. · Leave no stone unturned in your preparation – research is critical to the way brands and businesses function. As the saying goes, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. Securing the customer insights your brand or business needs will be central to your chances of success. · Take a risk – the great athletes, like the most successful businesses, take calculated risks. They know the importance of seeing the main chance when it presents itself and then going for it. · Relentless self belief and enthusiasm – the top athletes will not allow themselves to be battered by negativity. If we don’t believe in our brands, nobody else will either. · A desire to stand out from the crowd – nothing will undermine your brand more than becoming ‘wallpaper’. Creating a distinctive identity with which your market can relate is crucial. · Agility – there is ample evidence of successful brands recognising early that something isn't working and then changing their strategy accordingly. · Being part of a team – you only need to watch a successful relay or rowing team to see the importance of assembling the right team and then playing to the strengths of each of the members. · Get used to disappointment – whether you’re an athlete or a brand, get used to the ups and downs and learn how to ride both to stay ahead of the competition. It’s always been very clear to us that you get out what you put in, if you simply let things happen then you'll get left behind. So be inspired and, when it comes to your own business, hopefully you won’t have to wait four more years to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Preparing your brand for a ‘new world order’

The times, as Dylan once sang, they are a changing. Waitrose has just reported record sales of product via its click & collect service, whilst industry bible, The Grocer, have been reporting that supermarkets have not only been ramping up their Click & Collect services but are also now looking at extending it to non-food items. The publication suggests this could herald the dawn of the grocery drive -thru. This may seem a peripheral development for brands, being as it is more closely connected with the relationship between retailer and shopper, but there are implications and factors to consider. If there is an increased or steady move away from in-store shopping towards delivery or click & collect, product packaging may need to be adjusted to take this into account. Implicit in packaging design at the moment is the combination of front of pack short cuts with more detail on the side and back of pack which are intended to be more actively read and consumed by people who want to know more. If you are not physically seeing the product, you will not have access to this greater detail, the absence of which could influence your choice of brand. This is unlikely to have much of an implication for products that either do not require considerable thought or brands so instantly recognisable as to need more detail (e.g. Kit Kats, Whiskas, Tiger beer...). However, transfer this to a pro-biotic yogurt or a cholesterol-reducing low fat spread, where the choice may require more active thought, then the way the product is presented online versus on-shelf may well impact on how people shop in these categories. By replicating on-pack information but purely as text on a web page, makes it appear strangely out of context and leads to interaction with the brand, without actually seeing any of the branding. More often than not, all you get is a picture of the front of pack. This lack of product shots is a missed opportunity when you are dealing with consumers conditioned by Amazon and Ebay shopping to expect photographs of every single product component from every conceivable angle. We constantly hear from consumers that they like see-through packaging because they like to see what they buy. And often clients can't deliver that because of cost and technology constraints of making that sort of pack. But online they can do it every single time. Yet few do. And then there’s the unpredictable way products are described. A search of salad dressings produces this enticing product description for a Mary Berry product : “While every care has been taken to ensure this information is correct, food products are constantly being reformulated and nutrition content may change. We would therefore recommend that you do not rely solely on this information and always check products labels !”. Whilst other brands (e.g. Green & Black chocolate) have OTT product description essays which surely no consumer will ever read. So brands will need to give active consideration to how their products are being represented in the online shopping environment (size of the image, product details, juxtapositions) as new rules will emerge about how consumers’ respond to new brands or even brand extensions.