An example of the direct effect of social…

November 11, 2010 By

As a specialist in social media (as part of digital and mobile marketing), I’m not immune to the influence of my own social networks. And that was driven home to me earlier this week, with a direct result in financial terms.

I’ve been playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 a lot over the past year, and during that time, a group of mainly UK, 30-something gamers has gathered within one or two degrees of my social circle. It’s quite a small group in terms of the more organised ‘Clans’, but there’s enough of us, and enough dedication/obsession to mean that some of the group are online pretty much any evening that you care to look. (And many of them are 30+ professionals, backing up the theory online gaming is the new golf for business networking!)

Last Monday at midnight saw the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops – the new game in the CoD series. Given that MW2 is the biggest-selling game of all time in the UK (20 million sold), and a cursory look at my own friends list reveals a range in ranks going down to the 13 million+ mark, it’s fair to say that Black Ops was a pretty big event. Although even I was a little surprised to see exactly how many people turned out locally for the launch – hundreds were queuing when I happened to finish an evening of work and make the snap decision to try and pick up a copy in the middle of the night.

That’s right – I went out at about 00:30 on Tuesday morning to pick up a videogame, thinking there might be a few other obsessives, and I turned the corner of the shopping centre to find a few hundred people.

And I was purely driven by social motives:

I already have more games than I can feasibly finish, including the previous games in the series. And although the fun of a new game is attractive, Black Ops isn’t something which attracted me for that reason (as compared to Kinect, Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport etc).

There were two reasons for paying a premium in terms of financial cost (Wait a while and copies will be cheaper), and time (Sacrificing sleep to make a purchase, and the time since that I’ve already put into the game).

  • The loss of my social circle: All of my MW2 friends had stated they’d buy Black Ops within the first 1-2 days. That almost immediate loss of a social group was a prime driver in sending me out to the shops.
  • A chance to gain social status: I’m not the best at Call of Duty, although I blame a lot of it on slow internet speeds. During MW2 I suffered a couple of console hardware failures and as a result, missed large amounts of game time. This meant that I was only able to reach the medium level of in-game ranks – lower than quite a number of friends. By purchasing at launch, I had the chance to possibly get a little headstart on some of the group, and potentially I might end up as one of the top players in the group (Sadly that plan hasn’t quite worked, as I’m still not playing the new game particularly well!).

The end result?

  • £42 for the game purchase with added special offer of Xbox gamer points.
  • 1.5 hour of time spent purchasing the game and immediately coming home to try it instead of sleeping.
  • 10+ hours of time spent playing the game since I first brought it home.

And in case you’re tempted to think about this as the example of a particularly unusual and obsessive gamer, Black Ops has largely been sold on the online multi-player aspect of the game. And the first day figures have just been released:

  • UK and US sales in first day: 5.6 million copies, beating 4.7 million for MW2.
  • Revenue to publishers Activision in the first two days is estimated at $360 million.
Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

Passion is why Nine Inch Nails and vinyl are succeeding

January 7, 2009 By

There’s already a lot of commentary on the fact that Nine Inch Nails topped Amazon MP3 Album sales for 2008, despite the fact the first nine tracks of the  album had already been released by the band for free under a Creative Commons licence.

And the fact that vinyl album sales doubled in 2008, hitting a 17 year record of 1.88 million in 2008.

As Matt Mason points out, both examples show that ‘the physical souvenir of a digital idea still has value‘, and legitimate purchasing is becoming easier and more cost effective – for instance, Apple dropping DRM from iTunes and introducing variable pricing (although you’ll have to pay to remove DRM from tracks you already own). Om Malik nicely outlines the reasons why even the bonus from that DRM removal isn’t necessarily a good thing for the music industry – mainly because the three-tiered pricing structure being introduced could lead to more people expecting music for less.

And analysts are backing the idea that mobile music has to be free, for example.

Are there answers?

Going slightly further than Matt, I’d say buying an album already available for free, or investing in vinyl, shows something more than the benefits of better legitimate music stores or physical souvenirs.

I’d say it’s a direct result of passion.

The people most likely to download and spread NiN’s Ghosts I-IV are the passionate fans of the band. The people downloading from Amazon were aware of the album but either didn’t want to make do with the nine free tracks, didn’t want to download directly, or, possibly wanted to spread the word by purchasing via Amazon and propelling NiN up the charts.

Meanwhile to be a vinyl consumer you have to find a record player (hard to do offline outside of specialist hifi shops),  invest in needles and fluff removers, and actively seek out releases.

But what paying for NiN or vinyl does, is it elevates you from those people enjoying music as a diversion or convenient entertainment – it makes you someone who displays there passion for the band or format.

You don’t just like NiN enough to listen or download for free – You love them enough to pay $300 for the limited edition ultra-deluxe box set, and then buy the songs again via Amazon to promote them.

You don’t just have a convenient CD of new dance music or classic soul – you have the original vinyl with the ritual of selecting it from your shelf, sliding out the album carefully, putting it onto your record deck, and gently lowering the needle with the precision of a surgeon.

And anyone who witnesses either act is left within no doubt of your passion – and those who share it instantly mark you as one of their own. You’re not just a fan, you’re an Otaku.

It’s what sells a lot of products. For instance, the Halo Xbox game spawned two sequels, limited editions box sets, and a forthcoming strategy game.

  • Plus a table-top miniatures game.
  • The soundtrack CD for each game, plus a collection of the trilogy
  • 5 printed books
  • A graphic novel
  • A four-part comic book series
  • Calendars
  • Canvas Art
  • Posters
  • Vinyl Figures
  • T-Shirts
  • Controllers and headsets
  • Graphics to customise your console
  • Plus downloadable content to add to the original physical version, and customise your console dashboard

Then add in the derivatives:

  • Tournaments
  • Machima, such as Red vs Blue, which has it’s own DVDs, clothing and collectibles.
  • Halo costumes for Halloween or conventions.
  • And all sorts of other stickers and clothing from other retailers.

Now, how could you be a ‘real’ Halo fan if you just had a standard copy of the game? That won’t help you connect with other real fans, given 20 million copies of the series have been sold.

To show to other people you’re a ‘real’ Halo fan, you’ve got to have queued for the midnight release of the game, and have a sealed Limited Edition version. You’ve got to have the sountracks. At least one figurine of the Master Chief. A few of the books. Maybe a T-shirt.

After all, none of this is new!

Like this post? You could subscribe via RSS, or retweet it with http://bit.ly/9oEW

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Twitter + Authentic Celebrity = Word of Mouth success!

November 24, 2008 By

There’s been quite a lot of discussion around the Magpie Network advertising service for Twitter, and whether it’s a good or bad thing. Such as ReadWriteWeb, Jeremiah Owyang, and Techcrunch.

I bet the Twitter team are looking at the responses with interest!

But James Cridland picked up on an incredibly effective and authentic Word of Mouth event on Twitter. I’ll summarise, so you can go and read the full article, ‘Word of Mouse – @stephenfry sells bucketloads of Tweetie‘. Hugely popular celebrity and ‘proper’ Tweeter Stephen Fry mentioned some Twitter clients, received a recommendation for a paid client for the iPhone, posted a positive review of it, and gained a huge number of responses from people who appear to have paid for the client on his recommendation.

Who would have though that an influential celebrity who is authentically using a service could have a direct effect on a product? I’m off to persuade U.S. basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal he should be promoting 140char!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Finally…

November 17, 2008 By

Great write up on a Coffee Shop using Twitter to take orders on the Pistachio Consulting blog. Order for the drive thru, or, use the in-shop wifi to order from your seat and avoid the need to stop working!

Combine that with a recent story I spotted in which a coffee shop/cafe had started naming their free wifi with names like ‘buyanothermuffin’ or ‘trythenewcoffeeblend’, and you’ve got two great ways to really drive sales and engage with the community!

And as someone who occasionally becomes invisible to bar staff, I’m eagerly awaiting some UK pubs to implement a similar system! I recently happened to start chatting to a pub landlord who was commenting that wifi wasn’t a gimmick any more for a pub because everyone has it – but suddenly it becomes more useful than ever.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,