Gaming is an increasingly mainstream medium, with over 60% of online New Zealanders having play a game of some form each month.  InGame helps clients better engage with these audiences, by combining gaming principles with branding and training strategies.

Pursuit director Stephen Knightly has a long game development history in addition to marketing and PR.  Stephen coordinates the Auckland Game Developers Meetup, is a board member of Creative Digital Content Auckland and has led successful marketing campaigns for many gaming studios.  As a result, InGame has a network of New Zealand’s leading game developers and artists as well as marketers and trainers – afterall, the key thing a game has to be is fun.

Compared to interactive and digital agencies, InGame’s point of difference is its deep understanding of gaming: its psychology, range of possibilities and the high expectations that audiences have.

For more information check out the InGame website.

We’re pleased to lift the lid on our Pursuit PR brand video (Click on the images to view it on YouTube).

The video brings Pursuit PR’s brand story – high energy challenges, a continuous journey, clear goals – to life with star-studded cameos.

Making the video was a fantastic experience, but Nevada was HOT!  Bruce was great to work with, although the band were a bit prickly.  Unfortunately, there’s no parking on Shortland St for the car.

We didn’t have much budget left over for branding, but we managed to slip in our logo placement on the police car at the 3:50 mark.

In addition to his day job at Pursuit Stephen is an active gamer, both player and developer.   Dig a bit deeper and the link between communications consultancy and gaming becomes clearer.   Businesses and even the army already use games to simulate training scenarios while brands want sophisticated new ways to connect with consumers.  

How long does it take to create a game? Just 48 hours if you watch this TVNZ Meda7 report from the Auckland leg of the Global Game Jam.

Rather than setting out purely to entertain, these games were made around the theme of ‘deception’ – but that could just as well be a message about your brand, public relations campaign or social cause.  Sound interesting? Keep an eye on this space, more coming soon..

An important part of Pursuit’s value to clients is being connected to international networks, informal and formal. One of the latter is our licenced partner relationship with Text 100, a global PR firm named Asia Pacific Technology Consultancy of the Year 2009 by industry journal The Holmes Report. See the write up at The Holmes Report: Global Knowledge and Insight for Public Relations Professionals

The Holmes Report says Text 100’s social media practice influenced its ranking, while identifying other practice areas in digital lifestyle, cleantech and corporate social responsibility.  I’ll be working out of Text 100 Sydney’s offices in September.

Overall, most of the international findings apply locally – indicating that our bloggers are reasonably sophisticated and in sync with international practices.  The biggest difference locally is the volume of PR content and contact. In NZ, only 67% of bloggers (and we surveyed reasonably high-profile bloggers) have had contact from PR representatives in the last 6 months. Only 30% say they have contact at least weekly.

Most people agree that Social Media Releases are a good idea, although they’re not in common usage. Only 14% NZ bloggers have used elements from a social media release, but 57% intend to use them more in the coming year.

One irony is that 93% NZ bloggers prefer an introduction before receiving PR information, but only 40% indicate their preferred means of contact on their blogs.

Most bloggers are part-timers. Only 20% of NZ bloggers spend more than 20 hours a week blogging. While initially looking like a constraint, this can open up opportunities to engage them in the day job (eg, they may be an analyst, business consultant or journalist and can be approached in that capacity).

Isn’t blogging so 2007?  With the rise of Twitter, it felt like that a bit when surveying people.  But social media tools are interlinked.  87% NZ bloggers surveyed also use Microblogging sites like Twitter. 38% NZ bloggers report an increase in blogging since they started micro-blogging.

It is clear that transparency and ethics are mandatory in social media dealings (just like any media or business relationship).  100% NZ bloggers agree that bloggers should always clearly state their employer or association if blogging on topics relevant to their business. Most say sponsorships should be acknowledged. 100% say they would honour an embargo.

Last year’s Asia Pacific survey of bloggers’ preferences when dealing with PR has gone global. This year our international partner Text 100 surveyed bloggers in 21 countries, with Pursuit surveying many of New Zealand’s leading bloggers.

Key findings

- More than 90 percent of the 449 bloggers surveyed welcome contact by PR people

- Most report a high level of regular contact from PR people, with more than 96% of bloggers in the US being contacted once a week or more (versus 36% in APAC and 65% in Europe)

- Email is the preferred form of contact, no matter which part of the globe bloggers reside; and SMS and IM universally are the least preferred forms

- Around half of all bloggers in APAC and Europe indicate their preferred form of contact on their blogs, and as a result of this survey, a number were planning to add their preferred form of contact if they weren’t already showing this. 88% of bloggers in APAC preferred an introduction before receiving information from PR people and corporations and many of these bloggers also wanted a face-to-face meeting

- Bloggers are united in their desire for distinctive content, particularly around new product developments and reviews, feedback on content posted on their blog, and interviews with key people

- Photographs are most frequently used form of supplied content, followed by charts and graphs, and video streaming

- Almost two thirds of bloggers in APAC and Europe intend to use more elements from SMRs (Social Media Releases) in the coming 12 months

- Microblogging is used by more than 75% of all bloggers, and those in APAC and Europe believe they are blogging more often because of microblogging

Download the full global report here.

FYI, a Social Media Release about the results is here.

This makes sense as these are categories where more research is done prior to purchase, and crediblethird-party information from editorial content or peers (via social media) is more trusted than advertising. In business-to-business technology sales a committee of people often become ‘approvers’. Your sales team may never meet them face-to-face, but they’ll use a search engine to find you, your media coverage and any social media comments.

However, advertising still has its place for low-involvement consumer and FMCG brands. Nils Mork-Ulnes, vice president, Context Analytics notes:

“The study revealed that, on average, 27 percent of brand value is tied to how often a brand appears in the press, and that brand value can rise as high as 47 percent depending upon the complexity of the product category. On the other hand, when we correlate brand value to ad spend, this can be as low as 2% for complex products or as high as 24 percent for low-involvement brands.”

This study used the 99 of the 100 brands featured in Interbrand’s 2008 Best Global Brands, and used media coverage to measure ‘Media Prominence’. The methodology is laid out in the full report.

Crossing the Chasm from your technology innovators and early-adopters to a wider market is still a key challenge for kiwi innovation exporters, even 17 years after Geoffrey Moore first wrote the book.  Right Hemisphere haven’t just set up a US and international sales office, they’ve also invested in solution-based sales methodologies, recruited excellent people and defined their market.

Right Hemisphere sell ‘visual product communication and collaboration solutions’. On one hand this can sound like IT jargon, but on the other it is a well-defined market where they know they have a superior product (and it’s not jargon to Fortune 500 customers in that market).  Right Hemisphere invested a lot into identifying their market, their customers’ pain points and understanding their competitive advantages. The result is that they’re no longer just another maker of good 3D software tools.

They have a clear value proposition – and invested in developing it.  Sometimes I think people have a misconception that sales (and marketing) is about persuasion, manipulation, flash presentations. The most effective way for someone to buy from you is to know what they want and offer it. That means market research, bringing in outside perspectives, listening to customers and even dropping some previously successful product lines.

Congrats to the Right Hemisphere team - Todd Caponi who won Worldwide Vice President of Sales of the Year and the team who were finalists in the Software Industry Sales Team of the Year category.