Must Play

WackyKid Comment
As it has been well over a decade I’ve been into “games and stuff”, I was fortunate enough to witness their mind-boggling development starting from the early 2000s to this present day. Therefore, I feel that the time has come when I bring to you MY personal list of top 5 third-person shooter games – judged mainly under the grounds of plot strength, ease of gameplay, and quality of the graphic content.

Marty Comment
The more web marketing I create the more it feels like B2C sites are first person shooter games while B2B are third person shooter games. I wrote  about shopper as "actant" not long ago in Why Time Is Money Online (https://plus.google.com/+MartinWSmith/posts/RdjAjWoJTHw ).

I just wrote a Curagami post about difference in B2B / B2C storytelling (http://www.curagami.com/featured/story-storytelling-fedex-time/ ). Will put some more flesh on the bones of this video game 1st Person Shooter vs. 3rd Person Shooter analogy for web marketing soon.

McDonalds, Red Bull & Like Me Scores
McDonalds is pushing their Monopoly Game with big brands like Lebron, Patrick Murphy (hockey star) and others. This got me thinking about Red Bull and "like me" scores.

Advertisers evaluate ads on awareness. In a time where everyone is connected to everyone else Red Bull shows the power of "like me" brands. Red Bull brands cultural icons and athletes across a broad spectrum.

Red Bull favors the slightly known star. The missing dimension in ad evaluation is a "Like Me" score. If we ask viewers and consumers of McDonalds vs. Red Bull content is "Like Me" with a 10 point scale (10 = just like me, 1 = not like me at all) I would bet on lower "like me" scores as we move up the brand ladder. More powerful the brand the lower the "like me" scores with many personas (like our Internet marketing tribe).

Lebron occupies rare air, so his "like me" score is likely to be lower than a relevant but only slightly known stars favored by Red Bull. Red Bull gets another benefit by featuring slightly known stars - they get to help shape and amplify the story. They get to play a major role in how the "slightly known" brand becomes known.

My prediction would be the lower the "like me" scores the less likely a consuming audience, especially an online audience, would be to take an action. Higher the "like me" scores the more likely an action. SO...

McDonalds = my tribe = marginal awareness & lower Like Me scores
McDonalds + Monopoly + LeBron = my tribe = much lower scores (thus hurting the tiny margin that may have been interested).

Mcdonalds + Monopoly + Mark Traphagen (or Phil Buckley) = my tribe = VERY interested due to high Like Me scores and support and play is 100x more likley.

Smart move, in a digital age, is to align your brand with an army of "like me" brands.

By shaping the stories of "slightly known" stars, and McDonalds includes a few of these with Lebron, Red Bull's TELLING also shortens distance to "like me" identification" (is my theory). By telling s story Red Bull becomes the prophet / storyteller.

Red Bull's focus is outward (seemingly), but they are painting with the collaboration brush AND they are sharing their valuable amplification power to help lesser known brands. This creates a sense of Red Bull's altruism thus increasing "like me" identification chances (again my theory).

Red Bull creates a strong 3 Legged Stool:

* Brand benevolence helps "slightly famous".
* Distance between Red Bull and content consumers SHORTENED by branding within the tribe (albeit the top % of the tribe in a particular skill) so LIKE ME identification more likely.
* Collaboration feeds aspiration and positions brand as helper / filter / guide / prophet shortening distance and making LIKE ME identification more likely.

More on Red Bull's branding lessons on @ janlgordon's Curatti: http://curatti.com/red-bulls-branding-lesson-media-companies-now/

Successful content marketing engages over time. Engagement needs online community and a role shift from content creators to community curators and GAME creators.

How can you Gamify YOUR Content Marketing?
* Ask questions.
* Curate response.
*  Create "winnable" competitions.
* Feature, Feature, Feature.

* Curator & Creator = YOUR ROLES.

Learn to think like a video game creator. Content marketing too is a collaborative world WE (you + customers) create.

Kongregate is expanding its game publishing efforts this week via Launchpad X, a new arm of the Launchpad incubator program it opened last year that will fund development of more 'experimental' games.

Games and gamification creaete great responsive content. Games rock engagement, wins hearts, minds and loyalty so Gamify Your Content Marketing with 5 tips.

Marty Note
Great post here by a new to me but smart and gets it marketing author Bernard Marr on Linkedin. I posted a comment at the end sharing a link to one of my most popular Haiku Decks - Gamifying Content Marketing http://shar.es/1ag0sH.

Didn't do that to hone in as much as add in. Bernard's post shares some good examples of different gamification applications. The trend in HR and other internal departments to gamify is proving powerful.

I'm interested in the S/R curve of B2C ecommerce websites and find, especially in a connected mobile time, many places where "play" can create the tribes, support and engagement we lucky few Internet marketers crave and are finding harder and harder to create.

Great post, horrible photo (at least for me), so didn't perpetuate it here. Bernard's post is worth a read if you are new to gamification and he is a solid follow. M

Marty Note
Yu-Kai Chou has more than just the colest name I can't pronounce, Chou's got GAME. You want game to, trust me you do, then follow @youkaichou on the bird and find his great Gamification Daily Paper.li here: paper.li/yukaichou/cool-peeps