Marketing people care about consumers’ purchase decision, therefore they evaluate and speculate their strategy upon key factors such as lifestyle, personality and environment, whether to use Facebook to create the hype or have celebrity to do the endorsement.
And the product people care about who their consumers are. Who are the products for and how to use it?
Target consumers are the ones we need to communicate with and they’re the ones who play our games. Today, I’d like to talk about how we define our target.
I often ask our R&D team, “Who are our target?” And then I get answers like this, “16-28 years old, love online games, spend x amount of hours playing online games.” The structure of this answer is very clear. It defines who the players are and give them a basic definition. We circle a group of people as the players, however because this is a basic definition, chances are it may be our competitors’ group as well. Therefore, after the definition, we’ll need further deduction to “specifically describe” our target.
We should describe the targets’ features and features are their hobbies, characteristics, habits etc. The described features will be one of the keys for overall marketing campaigns. Target features are the source of promotion schemes, Ad and campaign creativity and budget allotment for media.
Target features are significant in film productions such as movies, promotion videos, commercials etc. Target features can matter as much as dominating the style of the film, or as detailed and specific as in/ Out points for sound effectors and subtitles. When I’m making a film, whether my role is a director, creative director or editor, I always ask, “Who is the target?”
It is true that we should specify the target but we should be careful not to limit the scope too small. A small scope of definition may increase difficulty of the promotion effect and message dissemination.
I once made a commercial for Olympus’ agent company in Taiwan. It’s a brand image commercial to be aired on TV and at respective exhibitions. Although Olympus cameras have their target groups, this brand image commercial aims at more senior users of high-end cameras (Because these cameras are too expensive, the users tend to be above certain age bracket) When we further asked about the target feature, the client said, “Users in Taiwan do not like to brag about what they have, or accept products which carry that show-off cquality.”
“Do not like to show off” is a distinct target feature that marks the tone of the commercial: deep, calm and collected which distinguish itself from commercials made by Sony or Canon. Suddenly, Olympus has a unique image style that is different from all the other big brands. Whether on the exhibition fairs or Ad campaign, it helped Olympus to establish its attribute.
Finding out the target features of your players would definitely help with the communication on the product design and game marketing. Now please take a look at these two films, one was the Olympus promotion proposal and the other was the promotion proposal of a fitness center in Berlin. Please pay attention on the ways in which they conveyed the information to their “potential consumers” to create topical effect and lasting impression on the brand.
Olympus Promotion ProposalBerlin City Fitness Center Promotion Proposal
About Author
Bruce
Bruce participated in various domestic and international commercial production, film launch and theater marketing; worked in creative script team of Beijing Branch, Densu Group (Japan); worked as a director for Gamania. He currently served as section manager in product development department in GJP.