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He Builds Marketing as a Brand Dictator: Al King
92 Plays5 months ago
Al King is a top-notch marketing professional who built rock solid brands for EA Games, 20th Century Fox and Wargaming. Al is a true marketing rockstar of video games, online and home entertainment, he stands behind the award-winning approach to understanding players aspirations and motives and helps game developers and online practitioners create compelling experiences and games that win players hearts without breaking a budget. I personally worked with Al at Wargaming for more than 6 years and together we collaborated on many global events, celebrated 100 Years of Tanks with real WW1 and AR tanks on Trafalgar square, helped win Golden Joysticks for World of Tanks and did a lot of high-level branding campaigns.
In this conversation Al shares plenty of interesting stories: how Electronics Arts agreed to publish a doomed from the start game to secure a contract with Shaquille O'Neal, how Al identified very niche and practically unnoticed audience for The Sims which resulted in massive overperformance; how he helped Wargaming leadership to build a proper brand instead of a logo and many others.
We also talk about differences between old-school marketing by the book vs digital marketing and AI-enabled marketing and how archaeology and ergonomics are linked to marketing, coming to very interesting conclusions.
We also talk about role of music in video games and how to build a video game brand that Iron Maiden lead singer would volunteer to become your brand ambassador. As a bonus the last part of the conversation features a live demo jam performance by Al with ad-hoc created music band “Serpentine Sibilance“.
Al King: https://www.linkedin.com/in/awking
Please, enjoy our conversation, subscribe, rate the show and share your thoughts with us at monthsandmillions@gmail.com!
Alex Babko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbabko/
This is a personal podcast. The views and opinions expressed here are only those of the author and do not represent those of any organization or any individual with whom the author may be associated, professionally or personally.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Month in Millions Show
00:00:13
Speaker
Hey, welcome to Month in Millions, a practical and inspiring show about innovators and emerging tech practitioners. I'm the host of the show, Alex Pampo. One of my areas of interest is video games, but I'm not a typical gamer. I like to unpack video games and digital experiences from a professional perspective. I like to analyze game design, engagement mechanics, art and visual style, level of attention to details and storytelling, and music.
Alex's Gaming Collaborations
00:00:42
Speaker
For me, music and video games plays vital role, and when we had a chance to run a collaboration with Eberoad Studios to master World of Tanks soundtrack, that was a shivering moment
Al King's Branding Expertise
00:00:52
Speaker
for me. My guest today is Al King. Al is by far the most prominent video game is branding professional I've ever met. A veteran of video games, virtual worlds, online and home-based entertainment marketing,
00:01:07
Speaker
alice is a true rockstar of video games marketing, and he stands behind the award-winning approach to understanding players' aspirations and motives, and he helps game developers create compelling games that win players' hearts and receive awards.
00:01:23
Speaker
hi l Good morning, Alex. How wonderful to be talking to you again after this time. Alex, it's a great honor ah for me as well to record this podcast episode with
Importance of Branding in Gaming
00:01:33
Speaker
you. And today we're going to talk a lot about the role of branding in video games, how game developers can understand their players and what happens if they fail. We will also talk about an intersection of video games and music and how many months and millions it takes to build a video game brand.
00:01:52
Speaker
Are you ready? I'm certainly ready, Alex. Let's do it. Let's roll. El, I think we know each other for almost 10 years, most of them while working at Wargame, obviously, on video game titles like World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and others. And from my experience, you have a supernatural ability to simplify complex concepts and to make them into manageable and the adjustable and understandable language.
00:02:19
Speaker
So can you please describe why video games need branding? Wow. Well, thank you for such a concise and brilliant summary. Why video games need branding? It's actually a controversial topic because um while a trained professional marketer understands that um everything can benefit from the concept of branding. Fun enough, um when you move, you know, I started out in the um soft drinks industry and then the toy industry and then moved into entertainment and spent time in games, film and music.
00:02:53
Speaker
I'm fun enough when you move into these areas um a lot of people think that traditional concepts including branding in fact particularly branding don't apply in their space you know because what they've got is special it's creative man it's different you know so it's an album it's a film it's a book you know it's game branding doesn't work.
00:03:11
Speaker
Which, of course, is complete crap. Branding works everywhere. You just have to understand it um and then um apply it in the context of the particular product or service that you're working
Branding's Broader Relevance
00:03:22
Speaker
on. So every sector can benefit from the um power of branding because ultimately branding is just a recognizable mark that the consumer trusts and you create that trust over time with your work and then at some point you know the brand does the work for you and they see it and maybe not even on a conscious level they will respond to it and it will actually you know make ah make them make that all important purchase decision. So branding is a critical concept in marketing and and it applies to every single sector including computer and video games.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, that that's totally clear to me and I think like two brand and marketing professionals, but imagine you meet like the most. toxic, specific, C-level executive in a video game company. This is just like, no, we we don't need that. So how would you justify that? And they're like very yeah down to earth, like very practical matter. Well, I've met a number of people that might fit that description and have given this speech on more than one occasion. So let's see how it goes down today. So, um, okay. I understand that you think your category is, um, different, special, unique. Um,
00:04:36
Speaker
it It probably isn't unique, but I certainly you know get that it's different and and and and and it's special. You are talking about things that have been creative, the things that have been created by artists, and that you know brings with it a certain amount of kind of care and and love and tenderness and perhaps you know a protective instinct to a bit like a mother might have towards her children.
00:04:58
Speaker
so um um you know I get
Marketing Fundamentals and Segmentation
00:05:01
Speaker
that. However, you know um in the same way that I would trust you to make something fabulous and then you know but um give give birth to your creation, I would expect you to trust me, the marketing professional, to then do that all-important communications job to make sure that this thing that you created, this wonderful thing, Finds its audience right what's sadder than an album that's been made Yeah, that never gets heard or a picture that gets painted that never gets seen I can absolutely make sure even with the kind of small budgets which are often available in the entertainment tree I can make sure that this piece of um this creative masterpiece
00:05:44
Speaker
connects with its audience, finds its right audience, and they'll maximise the chances of it being received appropriately, correctly and and respectfully. And, you know, a key way we do that is by, and you know, marketing comes down to the following fundamentals. These are the first principles. Identifying, creating and keeping customers profitably. The most important word in that definition of marketing is customers. You can't retain a customer till you've created one and you can't create a customer until you've identified where they've come from. This is the concept of segmentation.
00:06:18
Speaker
And, you know, my job is to find the right audience for your creative work and... um If there's been a ah series of um creative works, say, for example, like EA Sports, when there's a regular series of updates every single year, and indeed there was a plan to, you know, to go forward with releases, then branding is definitely one of the tools I'm going to be using in my kit, you know, to do that job effectively for you. And so your, you know, whether you've branded the works you've done before, they already tell a story and that's your brand story.
00:06:54
Speaker
It wouldn't take too much work for me and a creative team, possibly even you, you know, to actually articulate and define an even name, if necessary, what that brand is. If it already exists, great. It might just need a little bit of polish.
00:07:07
Speaker
Have you got a brand positioning statement in place? Is there a fully defined style and tone? Is there a style guide that goes with that? Is there a clear consumer proposition? Do we understand the target market and the channels through which and we communicate to our user? And do we have a sense of what kind of media vehicles and indeed partners might work well with us in the in the context of of that brand having defined it and the audience. So that's normally what I was saying. And a bit like you, they start nodding on about the third word and by the end of it, they've given me the money. Wonderful. That was like at the most condensed masterclass I've seen for quite some time. If you can't articulate something concisely, Alex, then you don't know what you're talking about.
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that's ah that's what this show is all about. And the guest that I meet are here is about practical and like the most um meaningful um attachment to the words. So it's not just like blah, blah, blah, but you know what you're talking about.
00:08:12
Speaker
Absolutely. so Yeah, ah so thank you for that. And um you mentioned the segmentation, and I personally remember from Wargaming times, your user segmentation presentations, ah that is still up to this moment. One of the best examples of meaningful storytelling ah or for me, because like player segmentation is It's very important and that's your like acknowledged field of innovation, like you kind of invented that that that approach. So can you please like also in very like down-to-earth manner describe what that what's that's all about? yeah And maybe like I give an example of like a pipeline A to Z, like how to deal with this information.
00:08:56
Speaker
Great question. So first of all, I didn't invent the concept of segmentation. But yes, I was lucky enough to be the first to apply it in the games industry when I was at EA in the 90s. And then that changed the way EA did its marketing and indeed,
00:09:11
Speaker
you know, the the the whole industry. So, um yeah, i'm right, so I i did um a year in sales with Coca-Cola before I got a job ah in marketing at head office. And so I had a crash course in marketing for about a week, just so, you know, I knew some basics and then kind of got on with it. A week. like Yeah, a week, one week, residential calls at the Chartered Institute of Marketing in 19, early 1990.
00:09:39
Speaker
wow yeah And then I just learned on the job with Coca-Cola. And then, you know, um I joined Electronic Arts after a couple of years in the toy industry in 1993.
00:09:52
Speaker
As a product manager then as a product marketing manager, which meant I had a small team and a bigger portfolio product um and then EA sort of Decentralized and everything changed from being done by the European team doing all the markets to having local offices So, you know French German and you know English and Spanish teams um working locally and and you know, I took over responsibility for launching all of EA's products in the UK and And um after, you know, with any new job, or indeed any relationship, it's like, you know, there's the there's the initial sort of like, enthusiasm and curiosity, and you know, inevitably, at some point, things plateau, then you have to find ways to keep you know, to make it interesting. So, I guess after five um or so years at EA, you know,
00:10:47
Speaker
I was sort of beginning to plateau and was looking for, you know, I remember thinking about I've lost an intellectual element to my work, you know, which you always have when you're studying for your.
00:10:57
Speaker
and for your degree there's always that intellectual side and I felt what was missing in business because you know business can inevitably become particularly a fast-moving business like EA it can just become about you know banging the products out and getting the money and and moving on to the next release and so I thought you know what EA have got this brilliant program whereby they will sponsor you and pay for your education if you want to you know go on to do and um secondary, tertiary qualification. So I thought, MBA, brilliant. Yeah, that would give me a qualification in business, which you know is directly relevant to my work. And also, the thing about marketing is, Alex, you know we'll touch on this, I'm sure, on more than one occasion throughout the the meeting. But unfortunately, most people in marketing haven't got a fucking clue what it's actually all about. And it's really embarrassing when you're a professional and you're properly trained and qualified
00:11:50
Speaker
see this half-wit sort of like drifted in because you know they they think it's about you know traveling around the world going to award ceremonies and like doing press tours you know and making you know really expensive tv ads you know that's a that's a tiny little bit of it at the full fulfillment end what it's actually is about is you know some pretty challenging strategic thinking which centers around um a Mandate from the user and there's a lot of it is about psychology insights and strategy and so um yeah it's a shame that that's still true and i think it's less true than it has been and and the profession's got better at kind of.
00:12:30
Speaker
making sure the people that are in the senior roles are qualified. But yeah, there's still a lot of hot air out there and and a lack of um proper science. But anyway, um so and like yeah i picked up all I picked up a lot of this you know from my MBA. And I remember or every single brief that was written by every product manager, every single creative brief or media brief or marketing plan, whenever it came to the target market section, it always says, mail 18 to 34, every single one. right So as far as everyone was concerned, they honestly thought that the it was the same target for this for every single game in EA's portfolio. Now, the great thing about decentralizing and moving from
00:13:18
Speaker
a centralized european offices when you're in a local office in my case it was the uk you go out with sales people to the shops now this is the late nineties is before the internet is the playstation era. I'm and um you know everything is still packaged goods and so you would do retail orders you would go out with your sales people to meet their customers who are buying and then you'll go to the shops and you'll see games being displayed in minutes.
00:13:45
Speaker
and All you have to do is you know go and see one of each of the of say the top 10 shops in the UK, top 10 retail chains, and you just watch people walking in and out. and You radically see that you know maybe for a couple of stores, there's a skew towards May 1834, but you rapidly see that there's way more to it than that.
00:14:06
Speaker
and so I'm making those observations while at the same time learning that you know what marketing is really all about. As we said earlier, identifying, creating, and keeping customers profitably. And you know you can't retain until you've created, you can't create until you've identified where they've come from. So customer identification is synonymous with the concept of segmentation.
00:14:31
Speaker
which you know is how you identify what the different target audiences are, the different target markets, the different personas, the different tribes. And it's not just about demographics, it's about attitudes and behaviors and psychographics as well. So you you basically understand who are they, what do you want? um what you know who Who are they, what do they want? How do you reach them and is it worth it? Are there sort of four key questions to ask? And so I simply convinced my, you know I made this case to my boss Paul Jackson, who's one of my heroes, I said, you know, look, every plan says male 1634. We know it's not that, you know, I just need to do a little bit of research, you know, to prove that. So initially, we did UK only on PC format only.
Research and Audience Understanding
00:15:18
Speaker
And I think the research this was 1998. I think the budget was about 10 grand. Yeah, wow. You know, that's impressive. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing about research is cheap.
00:15:30
Speaker
But you know and and and you know and it it'll be a small percentage of your overall budget, usually too small. But anyway, um it's an insurance policy to make sure the big spend actually is going to be effective. So a good marketeer should always be rooted in research and customer insight.
00:15:52
Speaker
We identified all these different types of segments. There was dedicated dependents, game gurus, time restrictives, aging laggards. It was fantastic. and yeah they They all um were interested in different types of gaming genres. they all Their purchase purchase triggers were all different. Some were reviews, some were ads, and their media mix was different. Some were specialist press, some were lifestyle and mainstream. Once you know that, you know and you've got this big release schedule, you can just go, well That product's gonna appeal to those that one's gonna appeal to them and you know, you've got got a big release schedule over here You've got your customers target segments here and you can just map accurately it all came together With a game called The Sims which you may remember when it came out. It was like revolutionary. Right? So and Sims was made
00:16:43
Speaker
by Lucy Bradshaw and the Maxis studio over in Northern California. And it comes from the sort of, you know, ah the SimCity line of titles. So Sim, obviously it's a simulation. So SimCity was the simulation of a city. There was SimLife, which is one of my favorite games when you, you know, you actually get to create your own animals in a and genetic lab. SimLife, brilliant. Anyway,
00:17:07
Speaker
You know, the Sims, you know, you could obviously see the connection there with Sims, the Sims, but there was something different. I mean, basically what it was, it was, you know, you could have called it Sim House, you know, because you were simulating um life um in a house with either a family or a couple or whatever the mix of people you just put in there. But um no one quite knew how to position it.
00:17:30
Speaker
No one quite knew who the target audience was, but we did in the UK. We knew it was going to appeal to um well three very different segments. and I'll be specific on this to make the point, in Alex, because I think you'll find it interesting. Because the game came from a renowned game studio and the AI behind it and the game design was really good and innovative, the people around that read the specialist press who are driven by review scores,
00:17:58
Speaker
they were going to be interested in it because it's the next game from Maxis Studios, right? So that's great. You basically make sure that the editors You know, and you basically do a classic PR job. So you you know, previews, reviews, and then, you know, cheats, hints, and tips, boom, boom, boom. And you get three bites of the cherry, and, you know, we got great review scores off the Sims because it was a good game. Boom. Then you come over here, and we found um in the segment called Dedicated Dependence, it's split neatly into sort of male and female. And there was a sub-segment of 11 to 14-year-old girls
00:18:36
Speaker
who only play PC games in that sort of four-year window. And you know it's when they were basically doing their O-levels in that wonderful sort of like studious phase, when they put down dolls, they're you know becoming creative and working with technology before they discover boys and makeup and start going shopping. you know There was, back in the late 90s, a segment of 11 to 14-year-old girls in the UK who were really into PC games, and no one was targeting them, right? No one. And most of the games they saw were clearly made by men for men, yeah? Whereas The Sims, this virtual dollhouse, it was like, you know, wow. So we'd identified this segment that no one had ever talked to before, and we had media indices coming off against, you know, basically teenage girls' magazines and comics, which had never had games advertising on them before.
00:19:27
Speaker
And, you know, I'm involved in the media agency and all this stuff. And so then there, you know, there's suddenly we when we launched the Sims, we effectively did a PR launch to the game's guru. we did a launch to the female dedicated dependents and we were running totally different segment specific creative in these magazines. yeah you know using you know Basically, um it looked like Barbie. The background was pink, the font was all sort of like glittery and the screenshots we chose were very much focused in on
00:19:58
Speaker
um The Sims themselves, as opposed to, say, you know, an isometric view of the house. um And then over here was this other segment called the um aging laggard, I think they were, or that yeah the aging laggard, who basically went into a specialist game store or an entertainment shop like H and&V or Virgin or R-Prize ah on a monthly basis with a budget of, say, 50 quid.
00:20:25
Speaker
And you know they would basically be they would buy what was being promoted and supported and championed by the retailer or there was also. At the time you had the game specialist press who just reviewed games but you also have the pc hardware specialist press yeah that talked about the pc lifestyle as a whole.
00:20:47
Speaker
so not just gaming but they would cover gaming and so we ran double page spread adverts dps's with a load of patch shots with review scores and quotes yeah that would target that segment so anyway when we launched the sims we absolutely we destroyed the sales target and we outperformed every single territory in ea world by multiples of four, five, six, seven. Everyone's going, what the fuck? What are those UK guys on? And I said, guys, we're just simply on professional marketing with proper segmentation, proper targeting, informed mark homes, and relevant positioning. We're just doing our jobs. And that was it. You're running marketing for EA Europe. Yeah, I deserved it.
00:21:36
Speaker
And yeah, and that was when I got the award. I got the Innovation Award um for applying the research um and and and and actually taking it from being theoretical and just, you know, data to actually applying it and changing the culture of a company and of an industry. That's what got the Innovation Award. And The Sims was the one when it all came together, perfect storm, boom. And then ever since to then, I've really not done a lot. I've just been resting on my laurels and coasting, but, you know, that's me.
00:22:08
Speaker
Nice, so awesome.
Marketing Principles and Technological Advancements
00:22:09
Speaker
awesome that's That's fascinating story. how do you think um How do you think this approach evolves now in an age of Gen AI? It doesn't.
00:22:24
Speaker
It doesn't change, Alex. This is a great thing. and and And again, you know, you know your stuff and you've done your research because the questions you're asking are really good questions. So I get into this, I get into this debate occasionally and sometimes even lose my temper. I've never hit anybody, but you know, that's because I'm 17 stone and I'm a heavyweight boxer and if I do, I'll probably kill them and then go to jail.
00:22:46
Speaker
But one of the things that was interesting about the the digital revolution when the Internet came along was that, you know as you know, it was rapidly seized upon by, you know,
00:22:58
Speaker
um what are now known as I let's call them digital natives um although technically they wouldn't have been because they would have grown up without it but anyway it was seized upon um by people quite quickly and um very quickly you got the first sort of like auction site ebay you got the first shop amazon you got the first social networking thing you know and and and they kind of like The same thing happened with marketing. People took advantage of it and basically used the technology um to come up with new things you could do like performance advertising or you know database, CRM, like hub HubSpot, and you know various other things. and That evolved into what we now call you know marketing technology or MarTech. yeah
00:23:45
Speaker
and then Because life is competitive and you know the young kids are always looking you know the young ones are always looking to get rid of the old ones you know because they they perceive them to be you know tired or out of date or irrelevant. You started to get this thing called digital marketing, yeah which was a stupid concept because and digital marketeers only use digital solutions to reach their consumers. Whereas what you need, obviously, is a holistic, sort of media neutral, a format neutral way of thinking. You know, be platform agnostic. Well, it it should be driven by the customer, not by the technology, right? And and so the same applies to a AI. The basics of marketing haven't changed. There's just been a fantastic
00:24:34
Speaker
um technological innovation, which, if you understand it and embrace it, you can use to do what you've been doing even better. you know You can be more precise with your targeting, and you can get data and feedback more quickly than you could through old analog methods. so but you know and It's the same with Web 3.0.
00:24:55
Speaker
um or the Metaverse, which is simply you know the internet going 3D, marketing remains identifying, creating, and keeping customers profitably. But there's now another suite, another wave of technologies available to us that allow us to do our jobs more effectively. It brings complexity. You have to ask more questions. and But when I've been working for and consulting for um Metaverse companies, like I'm doing at the moment and have been doing recently,
00:25:23
Speaker
you know even though they can turn everything 3D and make it look amazing, not everyone wants that or is ready for it and certain sectors just won't benefit from it. So, you know, and everything, technology is usually, you know, decades ahead of where the consumer is at or even, and um you know, what is actually applicable and relevant and ah and ah and and available feasibly in the current timeframe. So,
00:25:51
Speaker
um You know, knowing that, learning that early doors at EA and always championing a consumer sort of like oriented mandate means that, you know, you can help organizations um very quickly decide what they need to be doing and how they should be using, you know, Web 3.0 effectively. So, yeah, text gray, it comes along. It's inevitable, but it doesn't change the fundamentals of marketing.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. That's a very interesting point of view. If we look like on the other part of the spectrum, so we now looked into the AI, how that can or cannot change the course of action, but in your um in In your career trajectory, I spotted a very interesting aspect of acquiring archaeology diploma. so So it's kind of like looking all the way backwards ah to like the human humanity origins. So how do you think that helps you in your professional life? Good question. So yeah, I was studying a degree a third my third for my third degree in archaeology at the Open University, but I gave it up after the first year.
00:27:00
Speaker
A, because I realized what I actually wanted to study was anthropology and not archaeology. And B, I got the job at Wargaming and was far too busy to be studying for a degree for a third degree. so anyway um But again, another good question, Alex. right So my background is in the sciences. At A level, I did biology, chemistry, and physics.
00:27:22
Speaker
and Physics was a bit of a struggle because my maths isn't brilliant, but you know I was a scientist. and Then for my degree, I did anatomy, physiology, and psychology with design under the heading of what's called ergonomics.
Ergonomics and User-Centered Design
00:27:38
Speaker
right and The Americans would call it human factors, but it's ergonomics, ergonomos from the Greek, yeah the study of work. and Basically, what it is, you've heard of you've heard of the term user-friendly.
00:27:51
Speaker
This is an ergonomics term, yeah. Ergonomics understands the man-machine interface, yeah, and it effectively designs working environments and processes and tools to be fit for human use based on an understanding of the anatomy of the body, the physiology of the body, and the psychology of the brain. So in my final um in my final year, I was much more interested in the psychology part, and one of the professors,
00:28:20
Speaker
um He ran a um ah sort of sub subtopic called consumer ergonomics, yeah which was basically taking the principles of ergonomics and then you know um applying them um in the context of um consumer goods.
00:28:39
Speaker
and when you and then So that's the stepping stone. I go from science I can see how science can then be applied in a commercial place, and that's my stepping stone into marketing. And then when I finally get qualified in marketing and realize that it's a user-centric driven you know profession or discipline, I realize that effectively it's a form of ergonomics.
00:29:05
Speaker
yeah
00:29:09
Speaker
and the big bang goes off in my head. And that was when I realized that I was absolutely in the right profession, and I realized that my competitive advantage over my peers, who were good at coloring in, you know, um was that I was a scientist. And so I just blew everyone away using a little bit of science, you know, which when you work with with scientists, they would just take for granted, you know. um So yeah, um I think that answers the question.
00:29:38
Speaker
it It does in terms of like the archeology and like where it all started. I have one more question here associated with what you said. Because like the experience, the professional ah experience that you have, you mentioned like these started like in the fields of science, then it's ergonomics, then it's marketing, then it's applicability of marketing to different um ah business verticals. So how would you condense your like three key pillars that define like who you are in in in in your like professional life?
00:30:14
Speaker
So just a marketing professional with a textbook approach, really. I mean, if you went for surgery right to have an organ removed, you'd want a trained surgeon who did it by the book. right If you were unfortunate enough to go through a divorce and needed a lawyer, you would want a qualified trained professional who did it by the book. who did you know For some reason, a lot of people you know don't think that should apply in marketing.
00:30:44
Speaker
But it does, consistently. And only the people that get it, you know, are successful. And I'm only interested in working for and with the people that get it because everyone else deserves to fail for being stupid.
00:30:58
Speaker
ah Speaking about your career trajectory, which is like has been like for many, many years within within marketing domains, when I used to when i used to be running ah the voting campaigns to for our game titles like To Win Golden Joysticks, I recall an observation that I made in one of the conventions at the one of the ceremonies when literally you were like next to me and you knew every single person in the whole big room. ah So that impressed me so much that
00:31:35
Speaker
for many, many years have been just referencing, oh, like El can know everyone in the room. that was Anyway, like that was a benchmark for me. So it's just like, I want to be like that. I want to also like get into the room in like far away country and actually find connections with whom we either worked with or have ah actual common interests. So the the the the key for networking and knowing people. So yeah, how how you made it.
00:32:05
Speaker
Well, OK, yeah, doing a good professional job um is the most important part of that. But then you throw in the fact that, you know, you're six foot three, you've got long hair and you like to wear cowboy boots and snakeskin jackets and play air guitar. I love to chat. I love to learn. You know, I love to show an interest.
00:32:27
Speaker
You know, if I'm out and about in the industry of functions, then, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna want to meet people and, you know, and say hi and um a network because. I find it fun and interesting, not because I'm ah um ah um' a ruthless network who's doing it, you know, because I want to find somebody that I can get something from, you know, that's most people do it that way. And it's just awful. It's false. And it's like cynical. Yeah. The the network just grows when you're sort of there in the industry and you're kind of like
00:33:00
Speaker
attending all the major events and, you know, doing a good job and having time for people. It's and it's not that hard. um So you mentioned already like a few times your times at Wargaming. So what do you think were the most unique both professional moments like campaigns er or like personal moments because that was for many people who were with wargaming like late 2013,
00:33:32
Speaker
2015, 2017. That's the that best reported like a very unique moment in history So what was that? Yeah, 2010 to 2020 was the sort of golden decade. and Initially, I was going for the European VP marketing role.
Branding Strategies and Music Collaborations
00:33:48
Speaker
um But during the interview process, I kept on saying things and asking questions which no one had thought ah of. Because Fred Manu is a super smart guy, he kept on thinking,
00:33:59
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's right, you know. So anyway, they hire the European marketing guy, but then they also, you know, they want to take me on as a consultant. So I go over to San Francisco. i was I was asked to go there for the week and um and basically sit in and listen and then maybe you know make some suggestions. So Deema, who ended up being my boss, who's one of the brightest, smartest people I've ever worked with, you should definitely interview him for this show, right? He's brilliant. We used to jam together brilliantly because he was like you know he was the young digital native and I was the old analog strategist and you know the combination was just like amazing. But anyway, Deema,
00:34:37
Speaker
And you've got to remember, you know, Deema and Mike, that that first wave of wargaming marketing PR people, you know, that they're coming from a culture that has no background, you know, you couldn't study an MBA in Belarus at that point. So, the you know, the people I'm working with are the first wave of people that have ever qualified or studied things like business or PR or media, you know, and, you know, they've never actually applied it, but they're applying it you know, because of their learning, because they're super bright and and competent and ambitious people, and also with a great sense of camaraderie and team. But anyway, Deema is doing this presentation on the Wargaming brand, right? And um you can tell he's read up about branding, you can tell he's smart.
00:35:24
Speaker
You know, I'm just thinking and wow, he speaks really good english and I like this guy But you know, he he doesn't fundamentally get what branding is Whereas, you know i'm in the fortunate position that I just happened to work My first job was with coca-cola. So i've been hit beat over the head with the branding book for decades, you know, so Anyway, demon's giving his presentation and he's talking about what the war gaming brand could you know might be? And um, and then there's a pause at the end of it and it's like any questions There were no questions. So I went then a gentleman allow me to offer a perspective and I walked over to the whiteboard And I said at the moment you don't have a brand you have a logo I remember um on the whiteboard I divided it into two with the line at the top on the left I put EA Sports and then next to it. I put war gaming net. Yeah, I said EA Sports is a brand right the brand positioning is real sports for real sports fans the the the consumer
00:36:23
Speaker
proposition is, if it's in the game, it's in the game. And the key things it must have to be in the Air Sports brand are real sports, real players, real stadium, real teams, you know, boom, boom. I said, you haven't got any of that for Wargaming at the moment, which is why it's a logo and not a brand. And Victor he said, How do we get this? I said,
00:36:46
Speaker
Give me each of your functional heads for marketing and your regional heads from each of your countries. Hire me a breakout room and I don't know, think of I think I need an hour.
00:37:00
Speaker
He said, do it. Yeah. So immediately, you know, so anyway, we come up with a working version of the positioning statement, and the tagline and and what becomes like, if you like, the brand values and the style and turn the war gaming brand. And we present it. It was, that you know, there was another meeting happening while we had the breakout session and then it was lunch. We presented it. It was the last morning session before lunch. We presented it and the The brand motto at that point was, let battle commence. That was the that was the best I'd come up with. And I remember Victor just went, it actually wasn't him. It was somebody who sat next to him, his name I can't remember, who leaned over to him and whispered in his ear. And then Victor went, let's battle. And I went, genius, because less is more in branding, you know, let's battle. It's like Nike, just do it. Let's battle. So instead of let battle commence, let's battle. So that was the only change we made.
00:38:00
Speaker
And then he said, yes, good, you're hired. And then all over lunch, I had Deema basically trying to negotiate with me you know what what the salary and all that stuff would be. And they wanted me to come to Minsk. So I moved to Minsk for three months. And it was like, fucking hell, it was January. It was minus 26. And stupidly, because I didn't know the setup, my my room was overlooking the car park at the back instead of Lake Victoria on the front.
00:38:28
Speaker
And I just remember sitting there thinking, Jesus, what have I let myself in for? But, you know, three months in Minsk, learning about Minsk and Belarus and World of Tanks and Wargaming with Dima mainly and getting to know him who became a lifelong friend was just amazing. So, but yeah.
00:38:48
Speaker
Dima's presentation, which gave me the platform to demonstrate what actual branding is, which immediately led to, you know, me being hired. And I stayed there for 10 years and it was probably the best job I ever had. um one of one of the you know one of the mistakes war gaming made sadly was world tanks was a masterpiece it was made with love and care and it took years right and then they rushed world of warplanes out in about a year thinking you know we'll just do world of tanks in the sky yeah and in fact
00:39:31
Speaker
you know they were like shit it was the first time you know they'd ever you know failed anything and it was a big learning lesson it was a good slap in the face you know so anyway then a small team you know led by Sasha in Kiev they basically fixed everything that was wrong with World of Warplanes but a really small team and a really small budget and it took several years and so round about the point I was happy that you know all the branding work I've done had basically been received, understood and incorporated into work you know I could sort of relax a bit on the brand and I no longer had to be the global brand dictator which is my name
00:40:14
Speaker
So I basically, that there was nobody product managing um World of Warplanes and I said, well, can I do it? you know Because I actually think what Sasha and the team have done in Kiev, they have genuinely fixed the game. And also, my father was in the Royal Air Force, and my background wasn't tanks, it was planes making models of hurricanes, Spitfires, Lancasters, et cetera. So they said, yeah, we'd love to have you. So I basically did a second job at the same time for no extra money, just because you know I believed in the product and the team, and and and I loved the company so much.
00:40:47
Speaker
um And, you know, we successfully look um we um launched Warplanes. It was, you know, World of Warplanes 2.0. And then part of doing that was I used my love of music and my and my network to basically reach out to Iron Maiden, because they've got a track called Aces High, which is about World War II dogfighting. And it's just the perfect track.
00:41:15
Speaker
to you know to have and in a video. And we also knew from our research, going back to segmentation and customer insights, we knew that our audience were big fans of Power Metal, which is what led to the Sabaton deal. That was all driven by me in research.
00:41:30
Speaker
um And then, you know, the kings of power metal are Iron Maiden. And, you know, World of Tanks had Sabaton, so, you know, they stole that idea from me. So I had to get my revenge, right? So I had to beat them by getting Iron Maiden. So I got Iron Maiden, and we got Aces High for the World of Warplanes video, and you can still see it um on YouTube. And then the best thing was, as a result of that, Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer, or one of the most famous guys in music,
00:42:00
Speaker
He's also a pilot. His dad was in the Royal Air Force. He grew up making models, yeah. And um he basically said, yeah, um I'll be your brand ambassador. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go make some videos about all these planes in your game at the you know um ah r RAF Museum in Hendon. What? Yeah, yeah. let's so I said, well, I can't afford you. He says, no, no, no. I'll do it for free.
00:42:23
Speaker
So yeah, at that moment, I reached peak call because I got, well, Bruce Dickinson volunteered to be the Brandon Master for World of Warplanes pro bono. Thank you, I'm done. It's hard to really top that, but, you know, maybe something in the next few years in the twilight of my career will beat it, but it seems unlikely. Yeah, absolutely. and This is definitely like a once in a lifetime moment when are you see how your efforts, how your investment of your months and years
00:42:58
Speaker
are and the business investment like millions into the product development um that actually results in something like that as like the Bruce Dickinson actually volunteering to be your brand ambassador. um Yeah, so I also remember how um you always have been playing a very key role in anything related to music and the video games. And I remember the Prodigy case then when the the the the music was licensed for World of Warplanes as well with the Speedfire and that was like absolutely blust. So how to make this perfect soundtrack for a video game that or like the digital experience, how to find the right tone, the right music and the the right
00:43:49
Speaker
um the I've always enjoyed interviews and I think this is my favorite interview ever because your questions are just so good. Your questions are just so good. Thank you so much. It's obvious you've thought about this, but yeah, that's a brilliant question because what it does, it brings together the two key concepts which we've been discussing so far. It brings together the critical importance of understanding your target audience but also the the critical importance of having a crystal clear brand position, style and tone. We've got a brand over here that's all about heavy metal, solid, powerful, authentic gritty. And then over here, we've done this research and what we're seeing is they like
00:44:38
Speaker
power metal, yeah? The kings of power metal who invented the Orion Maiden, and then um outside of the UK in the continent on the continent in particular, Sabaton would be right up there. So we see this huge index for Sabaton, and it's clear, you know, that they, um A, appeal to the audience, and B, fit with the brand. And that's the only two things that need to be present for you to say, let's go with Sabaton. So we did.
00:45:08
Speaker
Wonderful. yeah So but what a great combination of different factors that actually like bloomed into very fruitful collaboration actually with with my teams at special projects back at Wargaming. So we had like a lot of focus and attention partners partnering with the music bands.
00:45:27
Speaker
hit like the Sabaton and running special projects on in-game and out-of-the-game experiences and collaborations with them and they're all the way like to Polish musicians when the Polish tanks were launched and so on. So that that that was and but very very very straight to the point.
00:45:45
Speaker
ah el ah Do you think that the good marketing can save a mediocre game? There's a wonderful English expression, which is you can't polish a turd. Depending on how much of a turd the game is, marketing can help. But again, I think your question is more about can promotion help a ah mediocre game? um Promotion
00:46:16
Speaker
less so, but marketing more so. The way marketing, proper strategic marketing, which is about identifying, creating and keeping the right kind of customer, mark what what marketing can do to help that game is to actually reveal that the game is shit and then kill it.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's what marketing. So marketing absolutely can help ship games by having them put down or weak products and services. that You know, marketing should be able to clearly demonstrate that it's not fit for purpose. There's no product market fit or even if there is, the is below it's below a sort of critical level of quality threshold, which means that, you know, it's just going to die. So, yeah, in in a word, yes.
00:47:04
Speaker
A quick question. So are out of the digital experiences, games, services, or products that you see, which should have been killed by marketing? I was the product manager for all of the non-sports titles. So the more famous ones would be Road Rash 2 and Jungle Strike, which were you know massive successes in the 16-bit era. And then, obviously, EA Sports was famous for Madden football, NBA basketball, et cetera.
00:47:34
Speaker
Now, in the mid-90s, there was a huge Well, both in terms of his stature and his fame, Shaquille O'Neal, you may remember, he's a seven foot two basketball player, right? Who was just immensely powerful. He would just slam dunk, you know, he would break backboards, you know, he would like wrench the metal hoop out of the, you know, back wall. He was just huge. Now, EA Sports obviously wanted him in their NBA basketball game, yeah?
00:48:07
Speaker
But because he was very powerful and he had a very strong commercial team around him, they
Market Analysis and Product Flaws
00:48:15
Speaker
basically said, you're only going to get Shaq for your NBA game if you let him do this. And this was his secondary interests were martial arts and hip-hop, right? So he had a group called the Foo-Schnickens, yeah, and he used to work out and and and and do martial arts. Mainly, they would play it him and his mates would play a lot of beat-em-up games and they would watch classic Kung-Fu films, right? His commercial team said, the only way you're gonna get him is if you make a beat-em-up, right, based upon his unique style of fighting, um and and it's gonna be called Shaq-Fu,
00:48:56
Speaker
It's the Kung Fu Shaq Fu, and the soundtrack is going to be by the Fush Nickens. Right. That's crazy. But that's what you have to do in order to sign the athlete that's going to add a huge sales multiplier to your basketball day. So anyway, this is at the time when we had Street Fighter, Tekken, Toshindo, right? All amazing beat-em-ups, right? This game came through, and I remember playing it thinking,
00:49:25
Speaker
This isn't very good. So anyway. Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone's got one, right? Use data, not opinions. Or at least have an opinion informed by data. So I focus-grouped it. Yeah, I got a load of beat-em-up players recruited to come in and they they they tested it and they said it's absolutely shit.
00:49:46
Speaker
And it was shit in every single element of the gameplay. Unresponse controls, not enough different kinds of moves. you know It was just shit. So I took the results to the head of EA and I said, this game is shit.
00:50:04
Speaker
you know Here's the proof. And I remember he closed the door and said, sit down. And then he told me that in order to get Shaq in the NBA game, they had to agree to sign off and make what is effectively a vanity project. So anyway, he said, Al, just be as enthusiastic about this in this thing as you can. It's not going to sell a tremendous amount of units, but you know go out there and you know product manage it to the best of your ability. oh Anyway, it got the lowest ever review score in the history of EA. It got 6%.
00:50:40
Speaker
in official nintendo magazine yeah no way um so yeah i don't know that's the example i thought of yeah that's very colorful and very yeah very very dual detailed that's exactly how it went down Yeah, I mean, and that's great learning because when you apply this marketing process that we've been talking about by the book, and you do it thoroughly and professionally, you know, you can get results. But occasionally, because of the nature of commerce, and celebrity and talent, you know, um you are forced, you know, not to do it exactly like that, even though you know it's wrong.
00:51:29
Speaker
But at least I understood why, you know, and so that was that was that that was a kind of growing up a learning moment in which I realized, oh, God, yeah, it's not all about brilliantly precise, awesome marketing. There are actually some real world factors that can get in the way and fuck you up sometimes. So yeah, that was an interesting experience for me. um um One more interesting topic that I would like to highlight to discuss with you. You already are confirmed before we started the interview that you indeed remember that our tiny tradition that started back in Cologne, at Gamesform or in Minsk or in London,
00:52:09
Speaker
When we had a tradition when you taught me like and some interesting words as native speaker and now it looks like many modern dictionaries actually took this tradition and made made a business out of that. So they actually celebrate a word of the year or something. And I was like in the same manner before it became like a mainstream actually celebrated and not the new very specific words by Elle. So one of those that you gave to me like seven or eight years ago was serendipity.
00:52:42
Speaker
And it means so much to me up to this point, as like as a guiding principle, that you're always open to something unexpected happening, to unexpected duty, like positive surprise when you don't expect some. So here we go. We meet again. So what's your word for me at this time? I do remember this conversation. and I remember the term I liked the word palliative.
00:53:11
Speaker
which means soothing. Oh, yes. I like the word combinative, which also means soothing. But I since discovered that this is Boris Johnson's favorite word, so I no longer use it because, you know, I can't obviously have anything to do with that um liar. um But yeah, and I mean, my favorite word remains sibilant or sibilance. Yeah, um because a it's unusual, be it's beautiful. See,
00:53:38
Speaker
um It's an onomatopoeia and so sibilance means a hissing sound or hissing and you know sibilant You know, it's just a different form of the word when you say sibilance Sibilance You're actually hissing like a snake. So it's ah it's a beautiful beautiful world that doesn't come out very often and um isn't on Mattape at the same time. So yeah, I'm going with sibilance. Yeah. And if you watch the Harry Potter films, you remember Nagini, who was like Voldemort snake. Yeah. um You know, there's a lot of sibilance going on whenever Nagini's, you know, on screen. Let's put it that way. I would love to make a track that was big on sibilance because you can, you know, if you think about a symbol,
00:54:30
Speaker
Like when you, you know, like a slow jazz song, which is probably why I'm thinking Miles Davis, when the cymbals just going... You know, if I was going to make a track called Sibilance, it would be instrumental.
00:54:44
Speaker
And here's a good related word, serpentine, snake-like. So now imagine putting two words together. you know Maybe we're watching a suspicious-looking individual moving who may or may not be a criminal. yeah You could say, he evoked a certain kind of serpentine sibilance.
00:55:08
Speaker
Yeah, and so, sorry, yeah, just having a creative moment. Serpentine sibilance. Wow, that would that that that that sounds really like a masterclass, both in English, in music and marketing andfield yeah and just condensed to one single moment. I love that. If only.
00:55:30
Speaker
so ah To sum it up, ah what was are the best investment of months and millions um in your life up until now? you know A lot of um finance directors or VPs or you know CFOs, I think they often look at the ah marketing department as just you know spend, spend, spend. yeah And it's quite often when it comes to budgeting and marketing, you know they'll just say, well, you know what's the what's the net revenue forecast? Well, 10% of that, you know that's the marketing budget. That's lazy, right? That's just using run rates. There's no fault required. um What you should be able to do if you've done your research right and you've got customer segmentation, yeah,
00:56:20
Speaker
you've not only qualified what the different consumer segments are, you've also quantified them as well. You know how many of each type of customer there are, and then based on either some assumptions or additional research, based on what their spending levels are like, you should be able to qualify qua ah um quantify what the sort of value of those segments are in terms of you know their spending power, which all you know which all helps make um strategic start targeting decisions more informed. The other thing is because you know what media channels are effective in reaching them and because your media agency has got the rate cards for all those media channels you should know how much it costs to
00:57:07
Speaker
get a certain level of awareness in that segment, right? That's proper marketing. That's zero based budgeting, because then you only need the money, right? So to get 50% awareness in the young gunners in North America, we only need to spend 10, you know, $100,000. Whereas 10% of the revenue might have been a million, you know,
00:57:30
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of people are just spending the million because it's like, yeah, I've got a million, man. Let's spend it. Fuck off. No, spend 100 grand. That's all you need to be effective and put the rest back on the bottom line or give me another hundred K for more research so that I can make more decisions like this. So that's a quick um sort of dive into zero based budgeting and, you know, the power of understanding the costs associated with effectively targeting your different segments and i suppose that links into um now this is not my campaign right but this is the greatest piece of marketing of all time i wish it was mine but you know this is so good i feel as though i'm gonna cry when i tell the story right so you've been to america yeah motel 6
00:58:28
Speaker
It's kind of like a budget brand,
Motel 6's Marketing Success
00:58:29
Speaker
right? um And, um you know, most people don't book in advance. They're just driving across wherever and then, you know, it's they're falling asleep and it's time for dinner. ah Motel six, you know, it's kind of the right. So it's a budget brand. When you when you drive in America on these massive freeways, highways, have you noticed how in the distance, you can see the town glowing, maybe a couple of skyscrapers. And, you know, you're 20 miles out and you start to get the the big billboards saying, you know, you know, um McDonald's exit 10, the highway Jones, you know, and then gradually as you get closer to town, there's more and more billboards. Yeah. And there's more and more commercial message. Right. Well, the billboards, the furthest out are the cheapest in terms of the media buy. Right.
00:59:25
Speaker
Right. So Motel 6 is targeting travelers, road travelers that haven't booked, yeah who are on a budget. yeah So it can only really afford to use the cheap media. yeah so you know Obviously using outdoor billboards on the edge of the roadside is is is targeting, but then they you know there there are budget brands so they can only afford that stuff. But there's a benefit because you're actually getting your message first before the other guys start, you know because they've got more money and less sense. They're using you know and billboards that are closer to town, but you know Motel 6 brand is already in your head. And then here's the genius bit. right Here's the genius bit.
01:00:11
Speaker
You see most hotel ads, right? And there's a shot of the amazing looking lobby or a shot of the award-winning fresh breakfast, yeah? Motel 6. Their customer, because they've done the research, they know that none of that is of any interest or significance or importance to their target market. They just need a safe, clean bed for the night, yeah? um At a cheap price.
01:00:41
Speaker
And so the billboard, yeah, it's just black. It's just black. And at the bottom, running across in bold white capitals, it says, this is how all hotel rooms look when you turn the lights out. Why pay more? Motel 6 brand. That is as good as it gets. Everything comes together, budget, targeting, branding. It's genius, Alex. you will never ever It will won't be surpassed, not even by me.
01:01:23
Speaker
We just like have only one question remaining. um So L, what's next? I don't know. um One of my sort of driving philosophies is, you know, don't mind what happens, which I genuinely live by. So, you know, whatever. I'm also quite karmic and I vibrate on, you know, positive frequencies and what goes around does come around.
Embracing Career Uncertainty
01:01:46
Speaker
So at some point, something that I'd almost forgotten about just, you know, gets back in touch and it's like, wow. And then last but not least is, you know, um
01:01:57
Speaker
I guess at this point, I have worked out that, you know, me and marketing do get on well, and I'm reasonably good at it. But I didn't know that. And, and you know, normally people discover me as ah as of as opposed to me discovering them. And so um for the longest time, I didn't know what I wanted to do, didn't really have a calling. And then, you know, just kind of like got discovered by people like EA and Coca Cola and taken on this marketing journey, which then I've sort of made into my own. But yeah, fundamentally,
01:02:27
Speaker
um I don't know. um I'm relaxed about it. I'm excited about what it might be and and and the surprise and shock factor make it kind of, you know, interesting. I'm helping four startups get over the line and um and I'm doing it pro bono at the moment. So um all four of them could potentially be successful one in particular could be huge so you know i'm just helping people that have come to me and approached me because you know they they want my input and and they rate me and they like me i'm helping them get their businesses up and running because i know when they take off you know they'll just say without you we wouldn't be here you know and so um yeah i'll then be able to continue buying my um
01:03:17
Speaker
super rare 70s secondhand vinyl records in perpetuity. um That was Al King, a world-class video games branding expert and a world-winning innovator in player segmentation.
01:03:30
Speaker
Thank you for coming out. Alex, thanks very much indeed. It's been an absolute pleasure. Your questions you so much.
01:03:49
Speaker
Hey, thank you for tuning in into the show. You've been listening to The Month in Millions, a practical and envisioning show about innovators and emerging tech practitioners. Please subscribe to make sure you don't miss a new episode. I'm Alex Bobko and you've been listening to The Month in Millions. Goodbye. um