Advertisement, Public relations and sales promotion, You must be joking!?
These ideas, tools concepts or however you choose to identify them are the foundation in which Empire is built on. In fact any other company similar to Empire in the gaming industry tends to work the same way.
So let's just walk through these 3 concepts and some specific aspects about them that apply to Empire just like we always do!
Empire the corporation / brand is a walking, living marketing tool as far as gaming is concerned. All advertisement done by Empire Arcadia is mainly focused help to promote the company, companies products and its players simultaneously. So what I am saying, Empire never truly segregates its advertising targets. There are many objectives when advertising comes into play and there are different types of advertisement. Sadly the "scientific" names for the 3 categories of advertisement that I named above which Empire focuses on is pretty obsolete to them, but if I had to narrow it down to one they could all fit in, it would probably be:
1. Institutional advertisement ( Trying to increase and maintain companies image)
a. Advocacy advertisement ( This would be the main type of Institutional advertisement used).
To the left is the CEO of Empire Arcadia, standing next to one of the most prestigious and honored men in gaming Walter Day.
Through what medium do they use? Well haven't I explained this before! Empire heavily uses various social media websites and the players who make live appearances to help promote the company, the companies products and (or) sponsors products. Just by a popular gamer wearing an Empire shirt with a logo on it using an Empire stick, indirectly promotes all three in which I named above. ( company, product's, player's).
All this talk about gamer's making live appearances, sure does sound allot like public relations. That's because it is, but its a devious ploy. Just think about it like this, the Yankee's exist as a team and then there is Derek Jeter, just by Derek Jeter being a member of the Yankee's their team gets added value. So wherever Derek Jeter may happen to be one thing is for sure. That's Derek Jeter who play for the Yankee's (get it!?)
It works the same way in Empire only difference is we are all Derek Jeters here! hint hint.
Empire Arcadia is not a retailer, therefore this week we can finally take a break from this company! My apologies, I have been apart of this company for over a decade, the last thing I ever wanted find myself doing is writing about them. I mean, I am a player after all, I would rather be pushing button's or in gamer slang "A button monkey".
So am I a genius or what!? Empire Arcadia is about gaming, so I went to a specific retailer who's specialty is selling games, systems and gaming accessories. Game stop!
Look at this logo, "power to the players". Oh yeah after reading this you would swear they were not making a profit off of you purchasing from them. If only life was that easy.
See what I did there?
Oh boy, do I have to do all the work here. Well if you read above I just revealed to you that GameStop is a specialty discount store. I would have thought given the name, you might have figured that out yourself. GameStop is also corporately owned, but for any of you looking to buy stock that is very much an option.
Like the quote says "power to the player". Promotion strategy at its finest. Now just in case you aren't familiar as to what a Promotion strategy is as far as retailing is concerned, I will define it for you. It is the type of promotion involving advertising, public relations, sales and publicity. For Gamestop, they have all these areas covered to the nail! Gamestop has advertisements its sales can be found in flyers on your doorstep, the news paper, and the easiest but largest outlet of them all, online as ads on media sites such as Youtube and Facebook. Need I remind these sites are visit by millions of users everyday. You may not acknowledge the ad but there will always be a subconscious suggestion for those who are even slightly interested or an unconscious suggestion for those who are not. If you thought their out reach was not large enough, then take a deep breath, because they also have an online store. Can we say overkill? No! but we can say category killer, which is exactly what GameStop is. Is this a bad thing, yeah, for the competition. You see a category killer heavily dominates its field of merchandise. In more simpler terms, majority of games, systems and gaming accessories are brought from Gamestop rather than its competition like "Best buy". The reason for this, is because GameStop is quite literally a library for games. Their product offering can hardly be matched by any other because their franchise focuses directly on gaming period. Meaning, they have wide variety of products with different brands spanning from the top brands such as Sony to 3rd party brands.
So lesson learned today! If you are looking to get into the business of retailing and it involves gaming, it simply not be a wise choice in this current era unless you are willing to bring something to the table that can reprogram consumers to choose your option instead of what they are used to.
Short but quite sweet
Consumer Behavior- describes how consumers make purchase decisions and how they use and dispose of the purchased goods or services.
So here we are again with another concept that involves understanding the gaming sub culture. What I would like you to focus on is not how consumers think in the world of gaming, but I would prefer if you thought about this as a sport as I described once before. I am going to list some items for you and bring this story to closure.
I. Merchandise
a. hardware (systems, headphones, etc.)
b. Clothing
c. Player (personality or someone who can win)
II. Talent
a. Broadcaster (hosting shows, events, commentating)
b. Tutorial making
Ok, so why did I make this list?
The world of gaming targets everyone! So all consumers within reach of its products given that they are even initially interested can easily become consumers to any of things I listed above. Although there is a definitive percentage of which type of consumer being hardcore or casual, would be purchasing your clothing or your variation of a product that is already out. One thing we must keep in mind is that the gamer is not the only consumer. The gaming community like sports attracts outside big businesses like redbull, Monster, E-cig and the list would go on if I could only remember. I am sorry too many companies and to little time.
What does this have to do with Empire? So I can explain this by using the first 3 things on our list.
I. Merchandise
A. Hardware can be licensed to Empire Arcadia, so that replica's of original products can be branded with their logo on it and sold.
B. The company can either go directly to a manufacturer and have their brand printed on the clothing or have the clothes branded by a company that does that for them.
C. This again!? READ MY LAST BLOGS AND YOU WILL FIND OUT!
A saying they have in underground gaming is E-sports and it would make things more clear if you saw it as just that, a sport.
As far as Global marketing is concerned, licensing and franchising are the primary tools used by Empire to conduct international business.
Licensing: where licencors give legal right to other firms to use its trademarks, patent (s), or in this case, Empire's players. If you look at the picture below, you will see a direct example of what I am speaking about. Qanba is a Chinese company that makes this particular brand of sticks. Qanba and another third party company paid Empire in order to have the right to use Empires name on their sticks.
Again always referring back to my previous post as they all tie into one another, you should have read that Empire is a development organization. As players in Empire rise in value, they are often approached by sponsors.
Sponsors: A person or group (company) that provides funds for an activity. In many cases we see sponsors paying for all or part of a concert, sporting event etc. In order for you to fully grasp where I am going with this, you need to think of gaming as a sport, with no differences but the sport itself.
The sponsor then has to negotiate with Empire. In a sense now you can say the players are being leased to the whatever company by chance needs them. The services normally performed by the players and Empire as whole usually range anywhere from marketing the sponsors products or their brand-name. As of recent more and more players are being sponsored to simply show up at events, and commentate entire tournaments.
