Recently in Experience Economy Category
Published in The New York Times on February 28, 2008 and written by Seth Schiesel, the article gives a general broad stroke on the perspective shift in gaming brought on by Nintendo's Wii, whose design and marketing incorporate and magnify the social experience of gaming, setting the console and its manufacturer apart from its competitors.
As Gaming Turns Social, Industry Shifts Strategies - New York Times
"Traditionally game advertisements, whether in print or on screen, have focused, naturally, on showing the game. But as it introduced the Wii, Nintendo devised a marketing breakthrough: Rather than show the game, show the players. In an entirely counterintuitive, brilliant move, most of Nintendo’s ads are now shot from the perspective of the television back out at the audience, showing families and groups of friends having fun together. Nintendo realized that emphasizing the communal experience of sharing interactive entertainment can be more captivating than the image of some monster, gangster or footballer on the screen."
This post is over two month late in coming, but thanks to the truely stellar blog Digital Cinema Matters I came across this article in the London Times. If there were a Featured Blog on The Second Sight (and there is), Digital Cinema Matters is in a class by itself. Pilgrims commentary on this article is excellent. I would add that my hunch is that gaming in theaters as alternative content is a perfect fusion of the game generations demand for hyper realism and an example of a potentially manifest experience economy vis-avis the Multiplex.
Ch-ch-changes are on the way to a screen near you - Sunday Times - Times Online
Excerpts:
At seven Vue cinemas around Britain, youngsters will be able to play the computer game based on the film on the big screen.
I don’t care how good your home-entertainment system is,” said Steve Knibbs, chief operating officer of Vue Entertainment. “Compare that with playing on a 40ft screen.”
"Look I think we have to pay attention to the extreme drop off in box office. It’s real," says Megan Wolpert, executive VP of Spyglass Television when I interviewed her in January this year: "People can say it's because of the content. People can say it's because of the options. People can say it’s because of piracy. Regardless, it’s real."
Digital cinema according to most industry spokesmen just might save the theatrical box office. 3D is especially promising for the younger demographic who have been raised with the hyperrealism of entertainment software. “I believe we are back," National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO John Fithian said as he proclaimed the long-awaited arrival of the digital-cinema age at ShoWest this year: "We stand now at the dawn of the biggest technological revolution since the advent of sound. Digital cinema starts right now, in the year 2006, and it couldn't come at a more important time."
Bob Gibbons, Director of Marketing and Communications at Kodak Digital Cinema remarked when I interviewed him in April. "The other thing is that you have got to use digital in a way that lets you enhance the entertainment experience, or changes the entertainment experience, or ad an incremental entertainment experience, or do something that you can't do with film; because some of us are convinced that if you simply put a sign on your door that says, 'I am going to show you this movie digitally, and by the way I want you to pay more for it.' People in essence won't pay more for it. If you are just reinventing the wheel and calling it fire, that is a little foolish." Gibbons sums it up: "So the point is that you have got to be able to do more with a digital system than you can do with an analogue system, and in fact you can. You can do a lot more. One of the ways you can do that is by having a network, so you can now not only get content, you can in fact manage you business."
Gibbons continues, “It's being done though over in Europe on a per capita, per person basis. When you walk into the door the exhibitor makes some money from you, and the money they make from you is partially from ticket price, it's partly from what you spend on concessions, it's a little bit if you play games, and stuff like that. If you are an exhibitor and you have a slide show, and a lot of them still do, they are probably making seven cents from you when you walk through the door. Over in Europe, when you walk through the door they are making up to ninety-four cents from you. Why? Because the have targeted stuff, they have sold it differently, they are showing you stuff you absolutely can't see on television; it's just different and they can sell it for a lot more money. It's the same thing."
The question is: would advertising ruin the movie experience? According to John Horn in the Hollywood Reporter: “Los Angeles moviegoer Leonard Kolod recently spent $9.50 for a Beverly Center showing of new Line’s “A History of Violence,” only to be bombarded by nearly a dozen advertisements and previews preceding the film. Kolod complained to Loews Cineplex, but rather than placate its customers, “Loews admonished Kolod in an email that ads 'have been part of the cinema experience for many years,' and are necessary to offset costs as 'screen actors are now receiving upwards [of] twenty million dollar salaries per movie and the films themselves are costing over one hundred million dollars to produce.' To which the Leonard Kolod's of the world will say, 'next time, I’ll wait for the DVD'” (Horn, The Los Angeles Times, “Hollywood should rewrite own script” December 26, 2005).
Then again maybe they won't. Maybe they will wait for the Blu-ray, but in actuality I think developments like the one elucidated below will offer theater owners more flexibility to deal with the challenges.
Kodak developing digital theater software | CNET News.com
Excerpts:
Kodak Digital Cinema and National CineMedia, a partnership of the three top U.S. movie theater chains, on Wednesday said they are developing theater management software to automate digital cinema systems now being installed at movie theaters worldwide.
Dolby pushes 3D cinema scheme, News at CNET.co.uk
Dolby Laboratories, best known for its cinema surround-sound systems, on Monday said it has teamed up with German virtual-reality company Infitec to develop a three-dimensional projection system for cinemas.
The Brand Underground - New York Times
Moving homes today...more soon.
Fox News Corp has a brand. Unlike their competitors, they haven't relinquished it to stars or shows et cetera. They are also the exception because they understand market retention. You may have a political bone to pick with Fox News, but only because you are aware of their brand. MySpace has market retention too, because, well frankly, it's quite addictive. It's the internet version of tobacco.
This idea of market retention is foreign to media firms in an age where most are hyper-focused on "capturing" markets. Media firms spend millions of dollars on marketing only to toss away their branding in a nano-second. All of this is applicable to Fox News Corp. and MySpace. News Corp's acquisition is on the digital ball. Viacom is not far off, but they are trying to build from scratch (with MTV's new social networking site Flux) what Murdoch had but to acquire. While other media firms are looking in their rear view mirror, Murdoch and Myspace are the perfect and timely diagonal expansion. More on that later. In the meantime...
Marketing on MySpace | ForBiddeN fruit | Economist.com
Excerpts:
CanMag- Box Office- Monster House 3D Box Office Exceeds
"3D in digital is much better than 3D in film. The technology in digital doesn't create the headaches that you have in 35 mm, because your mind doesn't have to adjust for imperfections in the speed of the film between the two projectors," said Joe Berchtold, president of Technicolor Electronic Distribution Services, when I interviewed him in February this year. A heightened entertainment experience, which includes, 3D, may be the only way that theaters can compete in the new age of digital multideliverables, video games, home theaters, and waning theatrical admissions.
The results of Chicken Little and now Monster House confirm this likelihood.
Read Excerpts:
In The Experience Economy, Joseph Pines II and James H. Gilmore spell out how experiences are the fourth economic offering as distinct from services:
"Consumers don’t want services, financial or otherwise - they want experiences. Consumers dine at theme restaurants such as the Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood, shop at experiential destinations such as Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles or Beursplien in Rotterdam, and vacation at a Disney theme park or other venues that stage a feast of engaging sensations and dramatic stories for them."
Pines and Gilmore continue:
"Experiences have always been at the heart of entertainment, from plays and concerts to movies and T V shows. Over the past few decades, however, the number of entertainment options has exploded. Today, the universe has expanded to encompass a vast array of new kinds of experiences, as new technologies encourage whole new genres of experience, such as interactive games, World Wide Web sites, motion-based simulators, 3D movies and virtual reality."
In "Good Morning, Hollywood," Munarriz offers an interesting proposal to theater owners faced with a waning box-office and increased competition from alternative media. Munarriz' suggestion elaborates on this growing trend towards experiential marketing and the ethos of the creative economy.
Munarriz writes:
"The studios can deal with the audience shift from theater to DVD. They'll get their money for delivering the content either way. It's the theater chains that are spooked, because their reach begins and ends with the theatrical run. The studios take a generous cut of the box-office take, so theaters have been relying on things like marked-up concessions... I may never understand, however, why concession menus err on the side of boring. I mean, sure, I understand the magic of high-margin wieners, salty snacks, and candy. But what I don't get is how nearsighted an industry can be by not realizing that the whole "dinner and a movie" mindset can be altered in its favor with a more meal-worthy, experience-driven approach to feeding the captive film buffs."
