Monthly Matters is a monthly review of marketing news in the world of entertainment. The September 2006 issue is largely focused on the evolution of in-game advertising; however, of note are convergent devices on the prowl, a presentation on Table Tennis by Rockstar luminary Wolfgang Engel, and business lessons from leeches.

• I’m currently working on several articles for this weblog that cover a range of topics. Branding Convergence will discuss four convergent devices in terms of branding and why technology businesses should not be quick to embrace convergence as strategy. Design: A Different Perspective will discuss how I think about and apply design to branding. This article is really a spinoff from a conversation with Raph Koster. Following a conversation with Terri Perkins, Beyond In-game Advertising will discuss the current state of in-game advertising and what I think the future holds for participants in this business.
• Double Fusion, an in-game advertising migrator, began implementing advertising ROI metrics through Interpret’s Gameasure service. Growing competition in this market now includes the “Big Three” migrators Double Fusion, IGA Worldwide, and Massive Incorporated. In addition, Adscape Media and Exent Technologies have entered the race. The marketing challenge these businesses are facing is that of establishing a strong, nontechnology-based competitive advantage. In-game advertising ROI measurements will add value to the middleman offering over the short term, but these metrics are not the white knight. They’re simply an expectation.
• Greystripe is also an in-game advertising migrator with a twist. Instead of focusing on the desktop gaming market, Greystripe is after games in the mobile arena. Greystripe chief executive Michael Chang was interviewed by Gamasutra and Modojo.com. Michael believes that mobile in-game advertising is a catalyst for “free ad-supported” mobile games. He also believes that mobile in-game advertising is “personal” because mobile phones are what Gamasutra describes as “more personal than TV or websites” and “personal extensions of their owner”. Are brochures and flyers personal simply because the viewer possesses these materials with their hands? Of course not. Advertising is impersonal regardless of where the ads are displayed.
• Nintendo will debut its Wii to retail four days after Microsoft’s scheduled release of the Zune in November. Convergent devices such as Apple’s iPod, Sony’s PlayStation Portable, Nintendo’s Wii, and Microsoft’s Zune are hot commodities for gearheads and technology fanatics; yet, all convergent devices are destined for short product lifecycles because convergence not only eats its young, convergence eats its dead too. San Diego-based Mercora unveiled at DEMOfall 2006 the availability of the Mercora “M” service three days ago. Mercora’s “M” service transforms Windows Mobile 5.0-based Smartphones and Pocket PC phones into handheld high-fidelity music players. Enjoy the iPod’s triple-digit growth while it lasts, Apple. It’ll be a short ride.
• The San Diego Chapter of the International Game Developers Association organized an event on September 28 featuring ShaderX series editor Wolfgang Engel of Rockstar San Diego. Wolfgang discussed the shaders and graphics algorithms that were used for Rockstar’s Xbox 360-exclusive title Table Tennis. We will also be organizing an October Mixer at Pizza Port in Carlsbad as well as a major gaming press panel to be held sometime between November 2006 and February 2007. Traffic to the chapter website, which is sponsored by my company Heretic and Real Pro Hosting, also exhibited 375% growth during September.
• Business Lessons from Leeches: “The medicinal leech has regained some of its lost popularity by its present use in microsurgery,” the authors write in the British Medical Journal. “Sometimes, however, the leeches refuse to cooperate properly. To overcome this problem doctors in the nineteenth century used to immerse leeches in strong beer before applying them to the patient.” German doctors ”renowned at the time as the world’s best” also recommended garlic and sour cream as alternatives to beer.

  Anders Baerheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen in Norway “realized that no one had ever actually tested whether beer, garlic, or sour cream really does stimulate the appetite of a leech. So they ran a simple experiment and discovered that the old advice didn’t hold up. Sour cream didn’t make leeches hungry for blood. Garlic killed them. And beer apparently made them drunk.” (Harvard Business Review 84)

Digital Gaming in America, an annual study conducted by Ziff Davis Game Group, recognizes that gamers who are most likely to become brand champions are also the heaviest buyers of consumer goods. The study examines the purchase behavior of core gamers, regular players, and casual gamers for products such as clothing, cars, consumer electronics, DVDs, and music downloads. Core gamers are “those who typically buy eight or more games per year and play 10 or more hours per week”. The study also identifies the majority of core gamers as early adopters.

For marketers, this study provides fodder for cobranding, in-game advertising, and public relations initiatives. Core gamers are “some of the most active, engaged consumers of all kinds of products. These gaming enthusiasts are pure gold for advertisers trying to reach the coveted 18-to-34-year-old market,” says Scott McCarthy, President of Ziff Davis Game Group.

comScore Media Metrix today released the second-quarter results of Game Metrix, a quarterly syndicated study analyzing gamers’ cross-platform behaviors and attitudes. The results confirm the findings of previous studies, such as that which was completed by Frank N. Magid Associates.

Brand loyalty remains the leading purchase motivation whereas word of mouth from peer recognition, editorial reviews, and advertising is a nearby runner-up. The results also suggest that 25% of the gaming audience are those who are quantitatively described as hardcore gamers (heavy gamers) in contrast to 75% of the audience, quantitatively described as casual gamers (medium/light gamers.)

In-game advertising is viewed in a more positive light by hardcore gamers whereas the opposite is true of casual gamers. While these results can be interpreted as “in-game advertising sucks because the majority say so”, the minority hardcore gamer is more likely to become a champion of the brand and therefore serve as a thought leader in the casual ranks.

Source: Press Release

Last night, I attended a cocktail reception held at Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza to support the fight against the ballot initiative (Proposition A) for a commercial airport at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. The reception was joined by California Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia, and San Diego City Councilmembers Jim Madaffer and Brian Maienschein.

Towards the end of the reception, the councilmembers were introduced by retired Rear Admiral Bruce Boland of the United States Navy. Bruce is a director of the San Diego Military Advisory Council, a cofounder of the NO on Prop A Committee, and the former president and chief executive officer of United Way of San Diego County.

Councilmember Jim Madaffer spoke fiercely on the issue. I learned from his remarks that the reconstruction efforts on Interstate 15 are worth a billion dollars, seven bridges are being destroyed, and the project is expected to be completed by 2008. The San Diego Airport Authority wants to move I-15 to solve the major traffic problems that would be caused by moving Lindbergh Field to MCAS Miramar. This would cost a billion dollars more, which Jim described as “ridiculous”.

Ahoy m’hearties! Vice Admiral Wally Massenburg spoke this morning at the monthly breakfast meeting of the San Diego Military Advisory Council. The presentation concerned the Naval Aviation Enterprise and the history behind the transformation of the United States Navy to an enterprise system.

The interesting cultural aspect of the meeting was the acknowledgment of International Talk Like A Pirate Day and the proceeding imitations of pirate accents by the Vice Admiral. Fitting that the Navy would embrace this special day! Yar, says I.

Richard Edelman is the president and chief executive officer of Edelman, the largest independent global public relations firm. Edelman is an interesting company because of their heavy investment in Web 2.0 and especially blog technologies. They recently launched a blog portal to aggregate content published by their numerous corporate bloggers, including Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel.

Richard published a piece today concerning Tolerance and the Role of PR. In principle, I disagree with his comments, one in particular:

We should not simply excuse the perpetrators on the grounds of momentary lapses of judgment. Words matter, often as precursors to action or indicators of future behavior. We need to hold our public figures, whether actors, government officials or businesspeople, responsible for their statements. We should not be so quick to forgive or forget.

Do words really matter? Do claims to act necessarily correlate to action taken? We have asked favors of people who never satisfied our expectations. We’ve assigned tasks to people that were never completed. It’s human nature: people often say one thing and do another. I’m reasonably certain Richard can relate as nobody seriously involved with a business practice cannot have ever encountered goldbricks.

That said, words matter in certain contexts. A masked figure holding a pistol to your temple who demands your valuables uses words that matter. Words matter when context matters. Richard discusses a recent celebrity drunk-driving incident involving actor and director Mel Gibson, criticizing his reputation management practices as “a bit too cute” of a ploy. Compare the case of the hold-up thug with the case of a belligerent, middle-aged alcoholic entertainer. Which context matters?

Trick question. Both contexts matter; however, each context is relevant to certain people. In the former example, the people who are directly affected consist of a single person whereas in the latter example the people who are directly affected primarily consist of Jewish community activists.

Yet, the importance of each context is contrasted by the result of the claims to perform. The likelihood of that single person being murdered is far greater than the likelihood of Mel Gibson inciting a new wave of antisemitic persecution with a passive generalization. The case involving the hoodlum is obviously more significant and progressively more influential than the case involving “in-the-cuff” remarks by a Hollywood celebrity of dwindling popularity.

Were some people encouraged by Mel Gibson’s brief quip? Undoubtedly, but we should not forget that those people who are encouraged by hatred are actively searching for emotional support for their hatred regardless of whether that support is derived from Mel Gibson or tanks rolling around the West Bank. We must remember that these reasons for hatred are not causes of hatred; they’re usually symptoms of greater problems.