Rovio – New Venture Marketing Plan

Assignment Requirements

 

Create a New Venture Marketing Plan for the attached Market Opportunity Analysis about Rovio Angry Birds. 14 Pages. The opportunity is to take Rovio’s strongest business “Angry Birds” and become a strong entertainment company by expanding Angry Birds to cartoons, theme parks, merchandise, and animation making

Market Opportunity Analysis for a new gaming product: Rovio Entertainment

The gaming industry has experienced tremendous growth in the past half-decade, based on a vibrant technological environment that continues to provide platforms on which games are developed and accessed to provide entertainment to customers. This is the opportunity available to Rovio, as well as other players in an industry that is as competitive as it is in touch with evolving trends. With its number one products in the industry, Angry Birds the leading game application of all time, Rovio next opportunity is to become an entertainment company, not just an Angry Birds game developer. It is time to expand Angry Birds to cartoons, theme parks, merchandise, and animation making. The opportunity is to take our strongest business and become a strong entertainment company.

Concept and Vision

The idea revolves around creating a strong entertainment company from Rovio, and makig people know Rovio as not just a mobile game developer. The idea is to target the same existing Angry Birds customers, which are all the family using new areas away from the mobile gaming. The compelling factor in this idea is that it pre-empts the needs of consumers and offers solutions in a additive gaming environment that they are already accustomed to. The market has never been more ready for this concept as the present, with the huge benefits presented in the advancements in the mobile phone industry. In fact, Angry Birds concept is designed with all its characters, ready to enter to new areas, like cartoons, theme parks, merchandise, and animation making.

Market opportunity in the gaming Industry

Content development and gaming options have the benefit of multi-faceted platforms that continue to expand. They include the growing number of devices that support social games as well as application sectors by which consumers can access social game content. Brands are driven by availability of free games that ride along the company brand, and externally, the increasing sale of smartphones, that support advanced games, across target markets all over the world. Forecasts predict that the social gaming market, in which Rovio is a player, should be expected to supplement the games accessed on options such as Playstation and Xbox (Richter, 2013). Statistics clearly indicate that consumers of social games on mobile media are increasing rapidly, especially for Angry Birds series games. In addition, Angry Birds are building loyal consumers who love playing the games and love the game characters. By counting this advantage, it is time to enable those consumers to see their loved Angry Birds characters in new media that wasn’t not used before. It will be a great opportunity to be an entrainment provider, via games, animated film, theme parks and merchandise.

Market analysis

Social gaming: Market trends and characteristics

Forecasts predict that by 2016, social games will have amassed 50% of the video game market (cite). According to IDAT, which is a digital economy think-tank based in Europe that regularly conducts market research in the digital industry, the social gaming market carved out 36% of the total online gaming market, and 13% of the overall market in videogames. It predicted that by 2016, the growth will increase further by 10% and 5% in the respective sectors to stand at 46% and 18%. The gaming market is approaching the maturity phase and its forecasted growth is geographically represented below:

There are new consumption habits in the gaming industry that game publishers seek to adapt to. Traditional games are becoming more social, with increasing availability through the free-to-play concept. Major players such as Sony and Nintendo are strategically integrating social functionality in their latest products. A good example is the Xbox 720 that comes with video chat and functions for contact with other players around the world (Shah, 2011). This illustration serves to show how important social gaming has become, a segment in which Rovio should focus its growth prospects.

iOS and Android mobile devices have virtually taken over the mobile market, enabling a tectonic shift in the gaming landscape, where consumers are generally moving away from the time and effort-consuming hardcore games towards light casual games that are less engaging (Thornham, 2013). There is emerging a new audience that is highly engaged, the mobile casual gamer that can be found in the mobile mass market. Going by these trends, Rovio has a ready market segment that it should target with its social games.

Age demographics that show this shifting trend is illustrated below:

Gaming products can this be tailored to appeal to either gender that promises a higher economic viability:

The main point illustrated above is that the era of smartphone mobile gaming, the primary carrier of social games, has revolutionized the gaming industry, with iOS and Android devices reaching a larger audience than console industry leaders such as Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo’s Wii. This is the market segment that should get tongues salivating across the industry, where consumers are younger and highly engaged. The conclusion, Rovio already created massive consumers segment that can be targeted in other media. If we will look at the animated films industry, Rovio characters will be a film targeted the whole family, and with the current massive consumers segment, it can compete with other film companies like Disney.

Customers and Customer Development

The market analysis above points to a segment that can welcome this product favorably. Families that are affluent, well-educated and willing to spend on products of the characters that they and their children love. This customer segment is characterized by individuals that are more susceptible to image and advertisement, The targeted consumers need such an opportunity in the new media selected where they have a huge presence, and going by the statistics presented, the mass-market mobile gaming is the ideal platform, plus the film making industry. Assessing the financial clout of the target segment versus their spending characteristics, one is expected to find customers who view film making and merchandise as important as other basic needs for entrainment. An affluent family is expected to commit financial resources on media that will avail such services at their disposal.

Customer demographics indicate the identified consumers fall in a wide income range of$40,000 and above, in professional occupations and more adept with emerging trends. These consumers are located across the world, further segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Rest of the World (RoW), with economies of scale guaranteeing that the large market is big enough to justify an investment. Secondly, the premiums the customers may be willing to pay will guarantee a favorable return on investment (ROI). Reaching the customer with the product is possible through the numerous advertisement platforms that include online, social media, print as well as magazines. Another option would be to tag the services along already established brands such as Angry Birds and therefore reach a ready market.

Telephone interviews were used to conduct qualitative research on the reception of the product; with favorable feedback generally indicating that the targeted consumers are willing to try out the new services when it will be available. A significant portion of the consumers interviewed fronted the idea watching an Angry Birds animated film in the cinema for example, would be entertaining.

Rovio is set on rolling out social games that will use the template provided by their hugely successful Angry Birds. This level of experience and success, currently still ahead of any other game, should be instrumental in guiding the development of the new proposed entertainment options.

Competition in the gaming Industry

Competition in the gaming industry is two-pronged: firstly, gaming companies compete for talent; identifying and pursuing skilled software developers who can conceptualize and develop games with an appealing edge to consumers and secondly, competition for consumers of gaming products. Rovio should seek individuals who are creative, able to meet fast delivery schedules and conversant with latest programming software and languages. Its reputation as the company behind Angry Birds should provide some competitive advantage in attracting top software developers who should find it appealing to identify with the company.

As a game publisher, Rovio should expect to face competition from outside industries that offer competitive remuneration packages to software developers such as Comcast, Disney, Lockheed Martin, GE and Citigroup. They therefore need to adopt hiring practices that are flexible to be able to keep up with the competition(Richter, 2013).

The social gaming market is diverse with numerous players such as Sony Inc., Nintendo, Mowgli, Silly Monkey, Zobee games, Xaviant, Big Fun Development Corp and Blue Mammoth Games, Inc. among others. The trend is that once a company unleashes a new product in the market, the others are bound to join the train and develop similar products that do not infringe on patents but generally address similar concepts(Lieberman, Esgate, & Farris, 2013). Rovio will need to develop an evolving product that constantly stays ahead of imminent competition, as well and as steadfast as Angry Birds has done, not only as a game, they can extend the development to animated films, theme parks and merchandise, which not all competitors can do. Rovio’s Angry Birds characters are designed with simple 2D characters that is easy to print, re-designed, transformed into an animated feature film and can be built into a theme park, like Disney’s Land.

Business Model

Social games base on the nascent ability of individual game developers to either turn out as very successful, average of flop in terms of market penetration and popularity(Richter, 2013). A popular game will still remain popular regardless of the company behind its production. Rovio should therefore adopt a business model that is primarily focused on product development, as any successes or failures will hugely hinge on the acceptability of the product in the market and new proposed markets. The easiest route to follow in this direction is developing the new entertainment option along the formats already taken by Angry Birds, and using this hugely popular game to introduce the new products and new entertainment options. Developing a suitable product is the foremost risk factor that should conclusively be addressed, as all other success factors or failures thereof will depend on the product.

Once the product is rolled out, Rovio should realize that the largest portion of its revenues from this product will come from advertisement income, as companies in the film making, modeling, design and merchandise industry will quickly take up the game as an advertisement platform to reach their potential customers.

References

Lieberman, A., Esgate, P., & Farris, P. l. (2013). Your Guide To Entertainment Marketing and Performance. Upper Saddle River: FT Press.

Richter, K. (2013). Beginning iOS Social Games. New York : Apress.

Shah, N. (2011). The Video Game Industry: An Industry Analysis, from a VC Perspective. Center for Digital Strategies.

Thornham, H. (2013). Ethnographies of the Videogame: Gender, Narrative and Praxis. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.

 

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