money

25
Aug
2018
True Fans and the Footprint of Core Audience

True Fans and the Footprint of Core Audience

by John Onorato (ghostwritten for PMD Partners)

To date, there have been many campaigns that happened mostly online.  One very successful example is the Occupy movement.  The “We are the 99%” crusade began in 2011.  Another effective endeavor that still continues is the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which went viral in 2013.  These campaigns had many grassroots-type elements in them, allowing people to feel as if they had a personal stake in the destiny of the movement.  These elements also contributed financially to the endeavors and got the groups talked about — thus ensuring their success with Crowdfunding Promotion.

There are many similar examples to be found in various places.  Two great places to start looking are here on pmd-partners.com and also on kickstarter.com, where screenwriter Rob Thomas’ Veronica Mars movie project recently enjoyed so much success.

I Am Loving Awareness

For those not familiar with the TV series, Veronica Mars was set in a fictional California town.  The eponymous character, played by Kristen Bell, was a high school student who at night was also a private investigator.  She operated with the assistance of her father, a detective.  The series lasted three years, over which time it accrued a significant fan base.

After the series ended, Thomas continued the project, writing a feature film script for Warner Bros. studios, who declined to back it.  And here’s where the commonality with the other online campaigns is seen:  The fans.  Or, if you will, the fanatics.  These two words have at their root the Latin “fanaticus,” a word describing speech or behavior that manifests when one is possessed by a god.

The fans certainly delivered for Thomas and Co.’s Veronica Mars.  The project goal was $2 million; that was met within just ten hours of opening.  Over 30 days, they raised over $5.7 million dollars, allowing Thomas and Warner Bros. to release the movie on March 14, 2014.

Clearly, fans can make things happen.  Fanaticism makes things happen.  Therefore it’s important to understand fanaticism, so as to be able to use its power within your own projects.  It’s especially important to use within crowdfunding campaigns, which don’t have the same resources as large studios.

Primarily, there must be a reward for fans.  In the case of the Veronica Mars fan base, the movie itself was the reward.  Promise the fans something they really want, and they will be more willing to assist your endeavor.  The cinematic continuation of the series was the whole reason why the project was backed in the first place.

Since Thomas ran the project on Kickstarter, he was able to promise additional rewards for higher levels of support.  At $10, a backer would receive a PDF copy of the movie’s shooting script; at $35, a Veronica Mars T-shirt; and at $50, a physical DVD of the movie.  If a person donated $1000 to the cause, they would also get two tickets to the movie premiere in either New York or Los Angeles, attended by the cast and creators, plus the after-party.

It’s interesting to note that not only is the pre-bought merchandise an expression of choice and desire for a certain thing, but it also conveys a recognition as a member of a common fan group.  This, therefore, assists with the need for identification and belonging, which is well-documented that all humans have.

Many people, however, opted for no physical reward, choosing instead to funnel the resources that would be diverted towards their rewards back into the project.  That says something for the nature of their fanaticism, and their devotion to the cause as well.  This altruistic concern for the project may be for the project itself, but may also extend to other fans, so they too get to reap the benefits.

The power of cable television has changed the way programming is offered.  At one time, several major networks delivered all available programming.  Now the there are many different channels, some serving niches as small as The Horror Channel and Movies4Men.  Moviemaking, too, is changing in a similar way.  The fans are making this change possible, through the power of their fanaticism.  With this they wield great power; clearly, as we see in the case of Veronica Mars, they can decide what gets funded and what does not.  Although the fan base is not typically important for large studios, which have large amounts of money to invest in the next big budget film, it doesn’t necessarily deliver to the people what they want to see.

Therefore, fanaticism is a way for people to overcome the traditional unwillingness of larger studios to give them what they really want to see.  It gives the people a way to take a stand on what they want to watch.  Not only that, but it gives them a means to make it happen as well.

published link:
https://pmd-partners.com/true-fans-footprint-core-audience/

Posted by John Onorato in Crowdfunding, Portfolio, 0 comments
21
Aug
2018
The Secret of Making Money in the Mobile Industry

The Secret of Making Money in the Mobile Industry

by John Onorato

These days, you’re hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t have at least one mobile device in their pocket. Odds are that they have at least one game on that phone, music player, or whatever it might be. True, that game might have been preinstalled – remember the iThings that had Maze, where you would tilt the device around, causing the accelerometer to move the ball through the game?

More often than not, though, games that people have on their devices far transcend the paltry OEM offerings like Maze, Vortex and Klondike, which are Apple’s current out-of-the-box offerings. We use the iTunes Store and the Android Play Store to download better and more popular games. And as phones get more and more powerful, we now have games on those phones that rival offerings on dedicated devices such as the Playstation Vita or the Nintendo WiiU.

The living room landscape is quickly changing …

Turns out that so many people are playing mobile games these days, it’s beginning to look like the landscape of the living room will soon be changing forever, at least in terms of game consoles changing. Let’s face it: Smartphones and tablets are still changing rapidly, whereas the Xbox One is pretty much just an incremental upgrade from the 360. Same for the PlayStation 4.

And let’s not forget the mobility factor. You take your phone with you wherever you go; your tablet gets tucked in your bag when you dash. At the same time, though, your console is more or less permanently tethered to your television set. That mobility counts for a lot, especially in urban areas, say, on a long commute, where there’s ostensibly nothing to do.

Just don’t get me started on how the rise of mobile technology is contributing to the separation and fracturing of humans who would rather have their noses in a phone, and not making friends with their neighbors. End rant.

Interested in where the money is going?  There’s an awful lot of it in mobile gaming.  According to Gartner, a leading information technology research firm, mobile gaming alone is expected to take up at least 20 percent of the market by 2015. Purchases made for mobile platforms are expected to amount to roughly $112 billion by 2015.  And as reported by Flurry Analytics, a leading mobile analysis provider, upwards of 80 percent of all proceeds generated last year by mobile applications were – you guessed it – games. And very recently, of the top 100 money-making iOS apps, more than three out of every four were games.

$112 billion? Really. Better start working on your app now, huh?

Where is all the money going?

And for the largest slice of that pie, get cracking on the next version of Flappy Bird. Because mobile gaming is huge. Huger than huge. You think Texas is big? Texas ain’t got nothin’ on gaming, which overshadows pretty much every other activity. That eclipses activities that might seem to be universal among smartphone owners, like checking email, texting, reading news, or even actually calling people. Gaming is capturing the eyeballs of about 60 percent of tablet owners, as well.

You might think users would be more engaged with friends on Facebook or other social networks, but interestingly, they’re spending more time playing games on their tablets and phones. Perhaps more dramatically said, add up the time that users spend reading books and magazines, listening to music, and watching videos. That time doesn’t even approach, much less equal the total time spent playing games.

Like it or not, we’ve got miniature computers in our pockets and backpacks. Small wonder that they’ve become gaming platforms, as well as being taking on the tasks that they were originally designed for. They just happen to be able to do a lot of other things as well. Sure, we can read news, watch videos, talk to friends, whatever. We’re human, after all, and we just love our games.

Just get working on that Flappy Angry Maze Klondike Bird game if you want your slice of that mobile pie.

Posted by John Onorato in Mobile, Portfolio, 0 comments