Chris Erb from EA SPORTS was a key note speaker at Ad:tech Sydney. For those who don't know EA sports is not just a giant in the gaming sector but also the global sports sector, and as a purveyor of discretionary entertainment spend there's a lot the arts can learn from them.
According to Erb, the main reason EA has become such a powerful sports brand is because it gives fans of sport serious and powerful engagement over an above the more passive consumption of a rival like ESPN. (Yes, they see ESPN as their main rival not other game developers.)
The success of EA is built on attracting known brands (NFL, FIFA) to licence them to develop games then delivering extremely well on the promise of those brands.
Some stats: EA Sports has 19 million facebook fans and 80% of users play 20 hrs per week or more - that's huge engagement.
The EA Sports mission is to build and drive connected experiences. Although the arts don't have games - what ways can we make our product more active, less passive and how can we drive engagement be it physical world or virtual?
EA does a lot work on "surprise and delight" features for instance, you can unlock a hidden passage of 3D gaming within Madden Football. But to do this you had to buy a special brand of Doritos chips to get the code and free glasses.
With regards to pricing EA stands for good value, doesn't gouge and only works with authentic collaborators (i.e. Football fans eat chips!).
They always keep the consumers at the heart of how they market their product - asking how would our gamers react if we did this?
Their BIG NEW THING currently is building offline experiences to strengthen connection with their predominately online brand. This is done by the development of themed EA Sports Bars, including ones on cruise ships and EA Sports shops in airports. The arts already is strong in the physical world, if EA is clamouring to offer physical experiences we need to realise what a strength that is for us .
According to Erb, the main reason EA has become such a powerful sports brand is because it gives fans of sport serious and powerful engagement over an above the more passive consumption of a rival like ESPN. (Yes, they see ESPN as their main rival not other game developers.)
The success of EA is built on attracting known brands (NFL, FIFA) to licence them to develop games then delivering extremely well on the promise of those brands.
Some stats: EA Sports has 19 million facebook fans and 80% of users play 20 hrs per week or more - that's huge engagement.
The EA Sports mission is to build and drive connected experiences. Although the arts don't have games - what ways can we make our product more active, less passive and how can we drive engagement be it physical world or virtual?
EA does a lot work on "surprise and delight" features for instance, you can unlock a hidden passage of 3D gaming within Madden Football. But to do this you had to buy a special brand of Doritos chips to get the code and free glasses.
With regards to pricing EA stands for good value, doesn't gouge and only works with authentic collaborators (i.e. Football fans eat chips!).
They always keep the consumers at the heart of how they market their product - asking how would our gamers react if we did this?
Their BIG NEW THING currently is building offline experiences to strengthen connection with their predominately online brand. This is done by the development of themed EA Sports Bars, including ones on cruise ships and EA Sports shops in airports. The arts already is strong in the physical world, if EA is clamouring to offer physical experiences we need to realise what a strength that is for us .
EA's customer knowledge is HUGE for instance they can find out, of all of the people playing NFL Madden online last Thursday, the percentage of people who always pass to the right on the third down. The arts also has access to comparatively much more data than the usual retailer and needs to look at it with fresh eyes.
Erb also says that gamification isn't just the domain of video game makers, anything can be made into a game and many corporates are using game-type play to strengthen positive buyer behaviour - I have further notes on gamification and will expand on this in a future post.
The key take homes for me from Erb and EA were:
- Look for ways to make the arts experience more active, more two-way and less passive one-way.
- Look beyond your niche to know your true competitors.
- Think about surprise and delight features. (a live band in the foyer, free wine tastings, unscheduled announcement to join the cast after the show)
- Think about real, authentic corporate relationships that make sense to your consumer.
- Leverage our real-world strength - that people come and interact with the arts in a physical sense.
- If you have access to rich data - even if not quite as rich as theirs - use it.
- Make a game of it! People will do things they might not otherwise if you make a game of it.
Hey Ricky - great post, I couldn't agree more. We are especially doing this with our kids program, the performance is the nucleus but then around it we have a bunch of activities.
ReplyDeleteIf that doesn't work then I guess we will just have to devise Symphony Orchestra 2013 or Theatre Production 2013 - far more cut throat than football and requires an extreme level of tactics!
Thanks TimL - actually a hybrid RPG/guitar hero type game for Symphony 2013 where you climb the ladder in an orchestra through your decisions role playing and/or skill with virtual instruments would be cool! But seriously our Take Part program does this too, early days but we hope to follow that whole show-as-nucleus thing too.
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