WOMMA/Summit - Day 1: Microsoft/Halo3 Keynote
The Halo Effect: The march to the biggest entertainment launch in history
Jeff Bell from Microsoft takes the stage, and preps us for a 360 degree approach to marketing case study.
The Story of Halo
Master Chief is a hero...
The game is not about violence and video game, it's about the story... a trilogy told over three chapters of a video game. Jeff's title is not about gaming, it's about "Interactive Entertainment" the business of helping people "play" their movies, engage with their television.
The Goal
Setting out to be the best
Not just to be the biggest XBox game sales/launch, but to be the biggest entertainment launch ever.
The Consumer
Two pronged effort:
* Capture the base
* Excited the masses
Basically, how do you help drive the base to excite the masses while still delivering a fantastic experience for the base? (This is an absolutely fundamental question related to working with fan groups!) Jeff says you can't isolate or separate one audience from another, but that you can help accelerate from the base out to the masses without screwing up the message.
The audiences/targets MS focused on were:
* Primary audience: Engaged, interested gamers
* Next Gen Intenders: Fence sitters, who game but not in a high level
* Broad target: people who are generally "entertainment enthusiasts"
The task was to create separate conversations with each of these three audiences.
Did it work? Yes! Halo's launch was bigger ($$) than the latest Harry Potter movie, as well as Spiderman 3!
Launching Halo3 was about "Connected Entertainment": how to create connection between all devices/media.
Starting with the base, MS focused first on the hardcore, engaged Halo3. Techniques:
* Talk their language
* Select revelation of content
* Asking this group what they'd like to know about the Halo universe they've not seen in the previous two installments (which turned out to be the story prequel)
* 60 second commercial - "Starry Night"... lots of surprise for the core audience that inspired debate, conversation, and examination - 27 million views on YouTube, but only shown once on TV (Great piece, by the way!). After showing, they went quiet (which allows discussion to happen unabated. Genius!)
* Million participant beta program
* Alternative Reality Game (codename: Iris) - begin from the core and spin out. Meant to inspire and excite the hardest of hardcore fans. Telling 5 unique stories leading up to launch, using all forms of technology.
The ARG game was cracked early, due to someone grabbing the Best Buy circular and posting online. Annoying? Perhaps, but it still had fans cracking the code in 23 hours and it absolutely flooded out to the blogs, forums, and news sites. (Important lesson here is to roll with the punches - if it works, it doesn't matter if it meets your launch plan)
As I listen to Jeff talk about the ARG program, it's interesting how much more "marketing 2.0" it sounds, very little "gaming", per se. Talk about working with your partners (Best Buy, Entertainment Tonight, Amazon.... the list goes on). Marketing programs that are fun to participate with. Can you imagine such a thing??
Think this kind of depth and integration isn't worth the extra work? Unique participation was well over a million people and 1.7 million pre-orders. Not too shabby.
Excite the Masses
* Build from the core
* Tell the Halo story - Heroism, and no Halo 1 & 2 play requirement. More specifically the them was "Believe"... believe that heroes exist and that as such they can impact the world around them. They didn't show the game as part of their marketing, which was a big risk. Instead they "fast forwarded beyond the game", and focused on "(virtual people's" experiences playing the game. Showing a video of an old man telling his history within the game world. Fantastic. Makes you feel like you're seeing a part of real history!
* Engage celebrities (Honest engagement, not paid endorsement)
* World-class creative
* Partnerships & Promotions
* Get the hardcore buzzed and talking to the masses about how great this thing was going to be
* Midnight Madness events for gamers of all stripes: 5000 pre-launch parties
All this lead to an incredible, huge, massive launch!
UPDATE: Question time!
Q1: What are you doing to top your own efforts for holiday season?
A1: Focusing on hits like Guitar Hero, Rock Star (virtual band via XBox Live), Racing, Sports. Random, instant street marketers who set up Guitar Hero, then run off and let them jump in and start playing... very surreal. "Living Rooms in odd places". Looking at how to broaden the social gaming experience with new social games and the marketing efforts for those games. "Bringing the joy", "bringing the "board game" back to the family room.
Q2: Is role of WOM to make marketing efforts cheaper, or to change the way money is spent?
A2: Pre-work to get to a place where "cheap" buzz, fan marketing, WOM was still very expensive too - don't underrate it. Overall the mix was much different, with little TV. This was the largest online effort yet, with 50%+ in non-traditional efforts.
Q3: Everyone wants a "fan brand" with a cult following... what are the universals for any company vs. specific to a brand like Halo?
A3: Check out the book "Chasing Cool"... be yourself, be your own thing not a version of someone else. The best place to wrestle with you are and what you do is to wrestle with the consumers. Keep it simple, no more than 4 DNA elements for a brand. Find the people who care the most and engage them directly and immediately. Allow the fans to own the brand, but don't give up the direction of the brand. Know who you are, know where the customers reside, find ways to engage, empower, encourage them.
Q4: How did you choose people at the events to pull aside and give them special treatment?
A4: Walk the line, talk to them. With 500 people in a line, you only need one person. The most important is to show that you honestly care, honestly interested in the fan's interests. If you're not living passionately the brand/space/industry you're working, find a new job! Love it or leave it.
Q5: Is there a need to be flexible?
A5: Yes! While MS is hardcore about the IP, they also love the fan fiction, fan videos, etc... it allows the brand to be "owned" by fans. You don't know how people will respond, so you have to just see it play out.
Q6: How did you address the recent negative word of mouth regarding "Three rings of death"?
A6: MS watched the discussion about the hardware problems very closely, and took a stand. They could be Audi or Tylenol - if you had that problem, they'd fix immediately and extend the warranty and additional 3 years. Mistakes were made, no mal intent, but MS stands behind their products... sales have accelerated since then!