The “High-Flying” Brand Extensions of Angry Birds
If you haven’t played Angry Birds as yet, you’re probably not reading this post – it’s been downloaded 350 million times and is considered by many to be one of the fastest growing, individual brands – with faster growth than Amazon and YouTube in two years according to Rovio’s Brand Advertising and Analytics SVP, Wibe Wagemans, via StrategyEye.
From iPhone to social gaming, movie tie-ins, its own upcoming movie, merchandise at every mall and a console game in the works, it’s created an incredibly robust yet lo-fi ecosystem. One has to wonder the next piece of premium IP and launch strategy to create such a viral following. Definite a nice perch to swing from; and an IP that has remained concentrated instead of spread thin (note: Rovio created 51 games that didn’t “hatch” before creating Angry Birds.)
I recently ran into red hoodie-wearing “Mighty Eagle” (aka Rovio’s CEO), Peter Vesterbacka, at SXSW. After closing the “Rio” deal with 20th Century Fox, Peter was visibly flying around the conference, exultant in the growth of his company and its high-flying brand extensions. Kudos to Fox under Peter Levinsohn in digital and Jake Zim in marketing for advancing a spin-off tie-in that definitely “added wings” to their film’s performance.
Below, a casual (and already dated) infographic on Angry Birds. The “Facebook” of casual games or a model in “how-to really extend next-gen IP…”
Digital Hollywood: Capturing and Transforming Millions of Users in Communities
Looking to “capture, captivate and convert” millions of users across social communities, gaming, conversation and content? For your brand, your start-up or your content – we’ll be talking about the building blocks of targeting and transforming audiences into critical masses. We’ll talk also about how CRM has changed with this catchy “social” thing…
The panel via Victor Harwood’s Digital Hollywood is Thursday, October 20th, 12:50-2pm.
Social Media, Brands and Target Markets: Capturing and Transforming Millions of Users in Communities, Content, Conversation and Commerce
Charles Black, President and Chief Strategy Officer, Technorati Media
Laura O’Shaunnessey, General Manager, Social Code, a Washington Post Company
Thomas Gerace, Founder & CEO, Skyword
Dan Schechter, Global co-head, Media, Entertainment & Technology, L.E.K. Consulting
Kevin Pomplun, CEO, SkyGrid
Pauline Malcolm-John, EVP of Strategic Partnerships, WeeWorld.com
Mike Raffensperger, Vice President of Strategy and Creative Development, Magnet Media
Adrian Sexton, Co-Founder & CEO, New Medici LLC, Moderator
Topics we’ll cover: building brands in social, targeting (niche) markets, rolling up niche markets (where are the new audiences and their WOM watering holes?), capturing influencers and tastemakers, social CRM (what is it?), social media for social businesses (SalesForce.com just bought Social.com – wonder why?) and what kinds of content rafts float these new communities? Soup-to-nuts conversion of social communities.
New Medici Innovator Series: Mohamed El-Fatatry
I met Mohamed El-Fatatry, an Egyptian-born Muslim living in Finland at a Finnish Consulate dinner in Los Angeles. Talk about “fish sphinx out of water,” yet Mohamed commanded the room with his eloquence and forward thinking.
He founded Muxlim.com, a prescient new multicultural company that was soon mirrored by the likes of Ogilvy and other multi-adcongloms. New Medici helped Muxlim leverage its social media feature set and network of sites into a leading diversity advisory to brands.
Mohamed doesn’t think small – as a mid-20s startup entrepreneur his CV reads like a global political leader, veteran diplomat or travelwise Ram Charan. In his own words, he is the “World’s Top Evangelist for the $2 Trillion Global Muslim Consumer Market. Visionary Entrepreneur and Motivational Speaker with a Background in Media, Technology and Business. One of the World’s “500 Most Influential Muslims” & “Leaders of Tomorrow”.
1. What is an “innovator” in your words? A “game changer”?
A change agent, a minority of active individuals who take bold action to create disruptive change. A good metaphor is a bottle of medicine that has 98-99% inactive ingredients, but only 1% of it creates all the healing effect.
2. How do you get inspired on a daily basis? What media do you consume? Environment? Tools?
I get inspired by looking at problems that affect me in day-to-day life. Then I look at the problem from a macro-level, and try to figure out if there is something that can be done top-down to trigger positive change.
Vanity Fair: Tech Has Disrupted the “Establishment List”
Vanity Fair does an excellent job in redefining the new vanguard of media in their annual “New Establishment” List.
With much smaller hype than their patrician traditional media peers, the list of late has become a Silicon Valley hitlist. What will be interesting is seeing which Hollywood media elites (think the annual Sun Valley media retreats) can earn back their relevance on the list.
With cross media investment groups somewhat the rage, think The Raine Group, which we will analyze, and others where talent agencies are bridging tech with content, it’s time to see who can scale media best.
Not an easy bargain when you listen to the backchannel on the Hulu sale – minus the great UX (user experience) that Hulu provides – but rather that big tech is interested as it’s so hard to procure studio library relationships that innovate at scale.
So, for those tech visionaries who can communicate, i.e., distribute, in content, let’s see who your “bridge” team is in 2012. The list below with some commentary after the companies:
1. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook – could own the #1 spot for several years to come; now needs to bring content and brands in with further immersion; think fan stratification fwiw, and create tiers of users who influence online.
2. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google – like the new – is it new? – management as they’re taking big risks that feed into Android, YouTube, Google+. Especially excited for games – finding a new medium between console and social…
3. Jeff Bezos, Amazon – I buy 70% (okay 80%) of all my retail at Amazon. Would they, should they compete with Apple Stores in retail as they expand the Kindle. Love to see them also become a bigger media machine with Hulu acquisition.
The rest of the top 50 after the jump…