We’ve taken a very brief look at elements of pricing and place in the context of App marketing. The basic framework of the marketing mix has of course two further elements, product and promotion. Before we finish, let’s consider those – and do so in the context of possibly the most famous Game-App of all time – Angry Birds! An app by Rovio of Finland, it is an inaugural member of Apple’s App Hall of Fame. Angry Birds has sold an astonishing 50 million copies. No app has sold more. Players include David Cameron, Dick Cheney and a pantheon of sports and music stars.
Angry Birds Screenshot
Let’s look at part of an interview with the lead designer – Niklas Hed – where the discussion turns to the ethos and process of the games genesis and evolution:
Rovio was perfectly positioned to take advantage. It had learnt a lot from the triumphs and failures of its past games. It also had copious notes from focus groups it had organised over the years, during which Niklas and his colleagues had watched people playing games from behind a glass screen and recorded what the players found difficult, what excited them, what they found boring. The information from these sessions had then been used to produce a blueprint of the “perfect” mobile game. The checklist ran to several thousand words, but, one of the main things they learnt was that each level had to feel achievable.
“It’s important that players don’t feel that the game is punishing them,” Niklas says. “If you fail a level you blame yourself. If the pigs laugh at you, you think: ‘I need to try one more time.’”
They also knew it was important that any game they designed could be played in short bursts – occupying those periods of “downtime”, such as queuing for a coffee or waiting for a bus, that had formerly been devoted to staring into space or, perhaps, reflecting on life.
“You have to be able to play the game right away,” Niklas says. “We didn’t want any loading times.”
It was this principle that led to the introduction of the catapult, the game’s central feature. Players know immediately what to do with it and it makes the game more intuitive.
The game also had to appeal to both video game “virgins” and hard-core enthusiasts. “We knew it had to be simple but it couldn’t be too simple,” Niklas says.
Kendall (2011)
The promotion of the game was based on a very simple strategy. Rovio noted that Apple tended to highlight Apps in the store with strong colourful characters present in the game itself and imagery used in logo design. This meant the characters in the game became front and centre in design – and the name became Angry Birds rather than, say, Catapult. Examining potential partners to publish the game [games studios design and build, publishers market] Rovio plumped for a company called Chillingo (Chillingo, 2011) who had a good relationship with Apple and a track record of successful publicity campaigns. The strategy worked, Apple selected the game as a highlight of the Apps in the store, that generated publicity which led to downloads, which led to almost totally positive reviews – word-of-mouth – between consumers which led to more sales and so on in a virtuous circle that has required next to nothing in terms of traditional advertising expenditure.
Even more interesting than the way the game was promoted is the ways in which the game itself is now so strong as a brand that it is being used to help promote other products and has even led to game related merchandise – covers for phones, plush toys of the birds and the pigs and even a tie-in with an upcoming animated film called Rio. The clincher in respect of Angry Birds now being a ‘transmedia franchise’ (Pulman, 2011)? Angry Birds being included as part of a promotion in a Superbowl advertisement.
Look forward to the animated series!
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Chillingo (2011) About Us From: http://www.chillingo.com/about.htm
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