Including Batteries

By Tommy Leung on 09/01/2010 in Life, Marketing

When I was a kid, birthday and Christmas presents seemed so much more grand. Every year they got less and less exciting. I’m not excited at all these days.

I look forward to the drinking and friends on birthdays and it is usually incredibly entertaining–alcohol does that. The holidays still have a magical feeling but, it’s not about the presents–happens when presents suck more and more year after year; good thing for the holiday booze!

On these gift-receiving days, there were likely times where you got a gift that required batteries and the gift-giver didn’t include the batteries and times when they did. How annoying was it when the batteries weren’t there and you didn’t have any lying around?

Those 4 AA batteries really make a difference. It’s not that apparent when the batteries are there because everything went smoothly. But when the batteries aren’t there, you notice. The gift just isn’t as good. The experience from unwrapping to unboxing to play is disrupted by having to find batteries before play. It’s not the ideal experience. If you are giving a gift, why wouldn’t you want it to be as pleasant as possible?

You’ve already walked 990 steps of 1,000. Why not go the remaining 10?

While the difference may only be a few steps or a few dollars in quantitative terms, the qualitative difference is immeasurable. I still remember who always made an effort to include batteries in gifts.

These little details are what separates the men from the boys–or the women from the girls–in life and the professionals from the amateurs in business.

Most of the time, these little touches aren’t hard to do or inconvenient. Their payoff is so much bigger than the effort they required; their ROI is fantastic. It separates you from everyone else who looks just as good on paper and has just as much talent.

Sometimes, you aren’t going to win on sheer force of merit. That $500 gift without batteries might get left alone in the corner while the $50 gift with batteries gets all the play.

Games and Growing Up

By Tommy Leung on 08/30/2010 in Games, Life

For someone who works in games, I write little about games. I know quite a bit about the medium. I enjoy reading giant tomes on the history of video games. The topic might be too dry for some but, I love it. To learn what was going on behind the scenes during the development of various big name games is like reading US Weekly for celebrity gossip to me.

I have very little interest in celebrity gossip. I’ll watch and love their movies, TV shows, and listen to their music but, their gossip and drama is not for me. How companies go from almost bankrupt to becoming a major success interests me. How a few people can create a breakthrough game in their basement and go on to change the world interests me.

Games as a Kid

I grew up in the 90′s. Being born in the mid 80′s means that I really remember nothing about that time. It was 1990 by the time I was four. It’s really only from the early 90′s and on that I have any recollection of life–everything before that is quite hazy.

The first video game experience I had was with the Nintendo Entertainment System at my grandmother’s house. The first games I played were Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. Those games are still entertaining today–a testament to their designs’ lasting appeal.

I can’t say video games played a bigger role in my life than anything else specifically but, it is one of my favorite forms of entertainment. I may have very well watched just as much TV, listened to just as much music, and even read just as many books–granted, I don’t read much fiction.

How major a role video games played in my life is irrelevant. I don’t love TV like I do video games. The business and development of games interest me a lot more than that of TV. I like to watch TV shows but, I don’t really care how it’s made–I care more about its part in marketing.

From Hobbyist to Professional

The amount of time I spend playing games–and playing in general–has decreased as I’ve gotten older. My consumption of all entertainment has probably decreased as well. It’s pretty hard to be consuming and producing at the same time.

These days, I spend a lot of time working. Not just at work but, also all the work I do for me. Apparently, life doesn’t really progress if  I just sit still. I need to be constantly learning and doing work so that I have things to show for. What a drag!

And, there’s quite a few people with my name–I have a common first name and my last name isn’t that unique in the country of 1.5 billion people. My Google rank is always in flux so I have to stay on my toes. If I want to stay up there in the rankings and continue gaining relevancy, I need to keep producing. Keep thinking. Keep learning.

I chose to be part of the video game industry. One of those technology industries where the technology part is always changing! And to make things worse, video games are purely entertainment. One amongst a sea of many others that are much easier to come by and more established. What we do is not a necessity so we have to constantly innovate and push the envelope just to stay relevant!

The video game industry is not for the faint of heart when it comes to doing work. Mix that with my drive to be more than just another anonymous face and there’s little time left for all those cherished childhood activities.

Everyone Needs Play

But, we all need a break sometimes that doesn’t include bars and alcohol–for the sake of one’s liver. I end up playing a handful of games over the course of the year. Usually they are the big releases or the releases from franchises I’ve come to know and love. I don’t often try new games. It’s sad. As a game developer: almost sinful!

When I do sit down to play a game, it’s usually over a weekend. I just disappear. I’m busy to everyone. I set aside a block of time and play the whole thing through and move on. I prefer the 15 to 20 hour games. I can mow through those in a weekend.

If I don’t finish a game in one set block of time, I don’t quite know when I’ll have that time again. When I do, I may have forgotten where I was in the game and what I was supposed to do next. All of which makes me not want to continue and I eventually forget about it.

This is a poor strategy for playing any large volume of games. In fact, in 2010 I have only completed Mass Effect 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I expect to play Metroid: Other M. I started Uncharted but, have yet to finish it–I probably won’t. I’m playing StarCraft 2 in super small bursts. I bought Suikoden on the PlayStation Network Store and I’m playing that right now–kicking it back to the mid-1990′s.

Game Experiences and Game Development

In all likelihood, I will end up having completed 5 or so games this year. Many times more games were released this year along with all the games I’ve not played from years past.

Which means I would have experienced a small percentage of all games released in 2010 and that percentage gets smaller and smaller as we add on the years. This appears to be a problem amongst most gaming professionals outside of game journalists–their job is to play every game that comes out.

I don’t foresee there being a way to increase the amount of games I experience in a year. I also think that’s perfectly fine. As long as I’m experiencing enough–from every medium–to be able to produce good games, there’s no problem.

There’s so much to do in life that getting any of this done is an amazement.

Brand Transference

By Tommy Leung on 08/25/2010 in Marketing

I’ve grown to really like FreshDirect–possibly even love. They are like the Amazon of supermarkets. I am a native to the digital world. I am generally more comfortable shopping online than I am in a brick and mortar store.

There’s no way to search by keyword at a store. I don’t see what other people also bought or what they bought instead. I can’t read reviews.

When it comes to the supermarket, packages of meat and vegetables don’t come with descriptions. I can tell the difference between beef, chicken, and pork. I have little knowledge of what each cut means.

It’s even worse in the vegetables section. I know lettuce, spinach, and that’s about it. Everything else is just more green stuff. And how to cook it? I have no idea! I eat my vegetables as a salad.

Reinventing Food Shopping

FreshDirect changes all of that–as well as ensuring I get fresh food and delivering it to my door. I can read about different cuts of meat, types of vegetables, what goes good with them, how they can be eaten, and how they should be cooked.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a foodie or an aspiring master chef. I just want my food to be relatively easy to prepare, taste good, and be nutritious. That’s really it.

FreshDirect is more than just the supermarket that delivers to me even though I do love that part. They also help me with what I do after I get the food. I’ve used FreshDirect for well over a month and it’s been great and I can say that I trust them; their brand is in good standing with me.

Because the FreshDirect brand is in good standing with me, I have tried new foods that I wouldn’t otherwise try and new brands that I wouldn’t otherwise try.

I am going to refer to this as brand transference. There might be another term for this but, I don’t remember any from marketing classes. The idea is as simple as the concept of guilty by association. Except, this is a positive association.

A Tea Story

I drink tea once in a while. Mostly because the only brand I am aware of is Lipton. My local supermarket does sell other brands but, I don’t know them from a hole in the wall. All I have to go by is price and their boxes–none of which is that appealing.

And since I can’t see reviews or get recommendations of which tea is good, I just go with the least worst choice price wise. I can’t even recall the name of the brand of tea I had bought last from the supermarket. It took me months to finish it and it wasn’t that good. I just assumed tea wasn’t that good–Lipton surely isn’t.

It wasn’t until I did a search for “organic tea” at FreshDirect that I found Yogi Tea. I trust FreshDirect to carry good products and there aren’t that many organic teas to choose from. Yogi had the largest selection and each type of tea was marketed for a different goal–detox, anti-oxidants, immune boost, etc.

I had never heard of Yogi Tea until I found them on FreshDirect. I bought a box. It was a simple and painless decision unlike when I’m standing in a supermarket aisle trying to choose between 10 different types of teas that all look similar with little descriptive differences.

I have tried 3 different boxes of Yogi Tea and even gifted one. I like their product. I may have very well seen Yogi Tea at my local supermarket or CVS and didn’t pick it up. There is too much clutter at the supermarket and I don’t trust my local supermarket to only carry good products.

My local supermarket has a neutral brand standing. I don’t love them and I don’t hate them. They are like a stranger and we don’t give much weight to suggestions from strangers. It’s our friends who we trust. They could be wrong but, we’ll trust them.

Word of mouth is a form of brand transference. The trust you have in your friend–the brand–is transferred to the product they recommend. If someone you dislike recommends a product, a negative feeling will be transferred to that product. Brand transference applies to the positive and negative.

Using Brand Transference

Word of mouth is no easy thing to bring about. You need to do something worthy of being talked about. And even then, when you think you’ve got something amazing, a lot of other people need to as well. Otherwise, no one is going to talk about it.

Why do cute cat videos go viral on YouTube? Is it really that amazing? Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. There really is no reliable way to make something go viral–it’ll happen for all kinds of reasons, few of which are completely predictable.

Simple brand transference can be created reliably. Brands do it all the time. When a brand decides to sponsor a charity or a cause, that’s using brand transference. The positive feelings people have for the charity’s cause is transfered to the brand that is sponsoring.

Brand transference can also be used for brands that want to establish a certain image to associate with existing brands that already have that image. Partner with, co-sponsor, or otherwise cooperate publicly in some way.

Brand transference is a simple and easy means for any brand to adjust or build their brand image quickly and effectively.

Step It Up

By Tommy Leung on 08/23/2010 in Life

There used to be a time where stepping it up in your career or professional life meant going to and finishing college. Long before that, stepping up meant finishing high school. In most industries, stepping up is no longer about getting more degrees. The time where pieces of paper denoted your worth over others has evaporated.

A pile of degrees look nice hung up individually on a wall. However, the thing people really want to see is what work you’ve done and, more importantly, the work you’re doing. Past glory doesn’t guarantee the future.

Not to belittle all the hard-earned and expensive degrees but, those degrees are nothing compared to actually shipping. Completing something that goes out into the real world. Not the fictitious world of theories and academia. The world of hard, cold reality.

That’s stepping it up.

Those with the skills and the drive are going to be the ones who get ahead. There are not enough resources for the snakes. There isn’t enough abundance for those who don’t add any value to come in and take a little off the top for themselves.

That party is over.

By that same token, you can’t be doing the absolute minimum and expect anything more than a life of absolute minimum. You need to actually have value and be able to show it. Convincing yourself and your friends that you have value over a round of  beers doesn’t cut it.

Look at the real world. Ideas are and have always been a dime a dozen. I can claim that I thought of YouTube before YouTube but, I didn’t ship. In my mind, it wasn’t feasible. And maybe it wasn’t at the time but, someone thought it was and shipped.

See what the best are doing. You need to at least aim to be that good. You might not get there but, it never hurts to aim high; even if you don’t hit the target, you’ll be more likely to have done pretty good.

Therein lies the stuff that separates those who ship and those who don’t. Those who believe it and then do it and those who believe it and then sit on their ass.

Stop talking. Go do it. Step it up.

Fighting the TV Tide

By Tommy Leung on 08/17/2010 in Marketing

[First, a shout out to a friend's new blog about television, life, and things that make her think. This post was not exactly inspired by her posts but, I'm sure it had some indirect effect that made me blog this after reading an article about the average age of US TV viewers. :)]

I would be the first one to recommend going against the grain and doing what you want to do. Innovations don’t happen because we blindly follow someone else. The key is in knowing when you are really fighting the good fight and when you are just afraid of the coming tide.

Let’s take network TV for example.

The average age of TV viewers in the United States hovers at 50 years old. Either the population is growing old rather quickly or the much coveted 18 – 25 demographic is ignoring the television.

Sadly for those who refuse to change, both things are true. The US population is getting older with the 65+ demographic poised to account for 19% of the population by 2030. The 18 – 25 year olds are ignoring the television and we will continue to ignore the television.

The worst part is not only that young people adopting YouTube, Hulu, and other online sources for their video entertainment but, so are older people. Hulu’s rapid growth has been due to their expanding 35 – 49 demographic.

The problem for network TV isn’t that the younger demographic is leaving the television behind while a large, older demographic will stay behind. The issue is that the market for TV content on a TV is shrinking. Networks that can’t grasp this will see their ratings continue to drop. There will likely be one network left to pick up the pieces. There’s still a profitable market to be had–just not profitable enough to sustain everyone.

There are mega-ratings events that happen on TV several times a year in the form of the Super Bowl, Olympics, Oscars, etc. but, how long is that going to last? The younger demographic is still leaving the television. The demand for this content on a computer is there and it’s growing. A few mega-events throughout the year can’t sustain all the TV networks either. If that’s the plan, it’s not a good one.

The poor CW! Their shows target the exact demographic that is leaving in droves. I remember when they were The WB and UPN existed as well. I was not a UPN viewer but, I did watch a lot of shows on The WB. As The WB was dying and merging with UPN to form The CW, they were extremely hesitant to move their shows online when FOX, ABC, and NBC did so.

I remember this because I no longer wanted to or could schedule my time around their TV shows and I was still watching Smallville and One Tree Hill. They didn’t put their shows online. The thing is, I had not missed a single Smallville episode for 5 seasons. The show was already getting ridiculous–I hear it’s even more so now–but, I had some commitment.

Thanks to The CW’s shortsightedness, I picked up watching House and Bones on FOX’s website. Eventually Hulu arrived and FOX, NBC, and ABC all eventually put shows on it. I now watch shows from all those networks on Hulu. They get to advertise to me where they would otherwise have not had me as a viewer at all. I have not spied a CW show for years.

This goes the same for CBS but, CBS is obviously doing something right in their programming and I was never a big CBS viewer to begin with. I am aware that all the networks have online episodes in one form or another but, they moved too slow. I have already moved on to new shows and there is only so much time I have for watching TV shows. With Netflix’s catalog of streaming shows, I have little reason to go looking for new shows that don’t show up where I already watch.

It would be quite a joke to call The CW a major network. The only thing major about them is how majorly they lag in ratings. The WB was a different story. The WB had some of the highest rated shows including 7th Heaven. I can’t point to a single show on The CW with remotely the same drawing power. The WB was a great product for it’s time. It didn’t change with the times and merged with another lagging network–UPN–to form a still lagging network–The CW.

The CW is still a backwards thinker: ”In fact The CW stopped offering an online repeat for Gossip Girl in order to try to boost viewing figures.” The CW is fighting the tide for all the wrong reasons. Most of network TV has moved on and are continuing to move on.

Fighting to keep everything the same because you’re afraid of what’s coming is not a good fight.