[arg_discuss] RES: Res: Res: What is an ARG? minimal, skeptic, nihilistic version

[Brian Clark]

Some great conversation fodder here for the morning coffee. 

Mike wrote:


> One issue I see with ARGs in marketing is that the story, game

> design, and technology are top notch, but the thought behind

> the marketing or communications can fall short


With all respects to my colleagues, I've got to totally agree with Mike on
this one. Mike and I had a rambling conversation at SXSW while heckling the
branded entertainment panel about how much of the community is still focused
on the "sponsored content" model and hasn't moved beyond that. I think it is
at least part of the reason why both Mike and I use a lot of sideshow circus
language: there's an acknowledgement there that the marketing is part of the
show.

Rafael wrote:


> Engagement, as a marketing strategy, is an issue I've never

> seen in the wild (just in books).


Now that statement is fascinating to me, and I'd love to hear you expand on
it more. Here in the US, engagement is both something that marketers ask for
and that there are metrics surrounding.


>From my POV, Rafael, you should try to let go of "the use traditional media

instead of ARGs" as a dichotomy. I'd never recommend marketers to stop
funding something that was working to try something new ... but a savvy
marketer keeps 5% to 10% of their budget in more experimental forms.

That said, I think experience designs like ARGs aren't at all about "reach
metrics" (like television is) and all about "engagement metrics" (like much
of the rest of the Web is also.) That means they work in tandem with media
strategies. 

Rafael also wrote:


> As far as I know, we Brazilian puppetmasters have never had

> the time, money, skill or know-how to develop a good metric

> to ARGs. All we have to offer are pageviews, unique visitors

> and comments in forums.


A surprising number of US/European firms are similarly focused on those
"activity metrics" plus the elusive never-defined "X number of players"
citation. Personally, I don't think they hold a lot of value (or even more
specifically, when the media spend is happening all those metrics go up but
"pages per visit" and "stick time" and other engagement metrics go down ...
stop the media spend, and the one set drops while the other rises.)

Here's the good news: I don't think the community needs to invest any time
or skill to develop a new metric for ARGs. Like Mike mentioned, experience
design can be crafted to ring any metric bell you might be interested in.
What we've found, predictably from form to form, is that if you engage an
audience you see a qualitative difference in all of those other metrics. It
is about finding out which metrics the client already values, and then
contemplating how the experience design can include what that measures. 

A quick example to make that concrete from the auto industry, which is one
of many that buys into measuring "key purchasing indicators" (KPIs). They
understand that people aren't going to "click here to buy a car" and they
understand that not all traffic to a website are people currently
considering buying a car. But, they also know that people who do buy are
more likely to report using the website to find a dealer, or to request a
quote, or to play with a car configurer, etc. So they already tend to watch
what percentage of the traffic generated from any marketing activity
produces KPI -- that's the traffic they are really interested in. High
volume but low KPI? Not as valuable, from their point of view.

Would it be easier to sell an ARG to that kind of company if you emphasized
the tendency of engagement to produce qualitatively higher KPI than raw
clicks off of a non-engaging banner? What if you could make the argument
that it would improve the KPI of all the rest of the media spend by
improving its engagement?

So it will take know-how from the community, just not time or skill. I think
it starts by asking clients, "How do you a prove your marketing campaign is
successful to your boss or shareholders?" If you understand that, you've
gained a powerful design weapon towards fixing what Mike was describing as
"the thought behind the marketing or communication."