Xbox Marketing Talk |OT|

Wait… there’s a marketing strategy?

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I would imagine, regardless of its early access moniker, it’s been “out” for 2 years. It’s just not worth the big -hoo-rah of a marketing push. Regardless, it should get some love either way.

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Yeah, I agree that Marketing needs some real push to get all the Xbox accounts to market all the games they have marketing rights to. I can understand that this stuff takes time, but they have their marketing team back, start putting them to work on more marketing, if need be delay any announcements from the games account so they can do those pushes together.

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With all the hires they have been getting I hope they will improve in this aspect.

Nah, couldn’t care less how they market.

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I genuinely think people worry way too much how they are marketing, I do find it a bit funny though how people say Xbox really need to improve their marketing on their big games that hit 10m 20m 30m players, with this so called awful bad marketing.

Like sure they could announce things in a bigger way and better but the fact their games have hit those high numbers kinda goes against they are bad at marketing.

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Yes, marketing needs major improvement

Just check out today with the Annapurna games showcase. Many of the games release on Xbox along with game pass yet no trailer for any of them on their YouTube channel. Compare that to PlayStation channel that already has a few of the announced games trailers on their channel, and that’s within an hour of the showcase. No wonder why many 3rd party games are heavily associated with PlayStation, Xbox does not market them much.

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Before I mute this thread, I sure hope that this thread will allow this tired discussion to be more contained here and not bleed over into every other thread, but I doubt it.

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That’s because Sony won’t promote things without exclusivity so Annapurna and many other publishers give in and let them get “exclusive” social media coverage for a period of time while Xbox instead goes for Game Pass deals.

Really? I didn’t know that. That’s ridiculous of them. Here I was thinking like wow nothing on the Xbox channel.

It’s an interesting question. I know we hear again and again that MS doesn’t do a good enough job marketing, but then how do their games get tens of millions of players?

And I know, I know, game pass. But game pass alone isn’t the reason grounded has already had over 10 million people playing.

I think Xbox has maybe more targeted marketing. For example, they have a pretty successful Tiktok channel and (imo) the best brand twitter out there.

I do agree that it can feel disjointed though, and I do think they should be better with pushing their “Xbox” brand on all their stuff, but overall I don’t think it’s in nearly as dire of a state as many others do.

On the flip side of this, Xbox’s youtube channel does usually have a ton of trailers, especially for smaller titles. I regularly use it to catch up on stuff I may have missed after a few weeks.

Maybe they’ll have trailers and whatnot during the Xbox Gamescom Showcase and Keighley’s kickoff show since the full 1.0 version doesn’t release until September.

As for Redfall, I believe the marketing will pick up as the year ends. I can see a trailer at The Game Awards with the release date being announced for February/March and from TGA to release, there should be a solid marketing cycle for it.

In general, Microsoft has always been terrible at marketing Xbox. This conversation/debate has gone on for what seems like forever. The bigger issue would be - why? What’s the reason and cause? Is the marketing team really that out of touch with what Microsoft’s studios are doing and when they release games and updates?

I would love to see Microsoft go all out when it comes to marketing and whatnot for Xbox. Even for stuff like Grounded which isn’t for me but is immensely popular and you would think that they would market and advertise it more than they do in order to get more players and make it even more popular.

On a related side note - I agree 100% with Klobrille.

While I do disagree that MS is terrible at advertising Xbox, the answer to this may simply be that their games do well with the marketing they currently have.

Even As Dusk Falls, which people wrote off as a bomb because of steam numbers, is sitting comfortably in the top 50 most played lists (26th in US, 21st in Canada).

There’s also the other side where when they do give their games a big platform, like say ESO or 76 at their summer show, it’s met with some backlash from some groups.

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Perhaps terrible was a bad word but it seems like they don’t market and advertise their new game releases or new game content as much as they should.

The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 issue is because both games have existed for years so people prefer to see new upcoming stuff get those spots instead. These should be getting a tweet and blogpost while Grounded should get focus because first, it’s the newer game and second, the other two are well established franchises. They don’t need extra marketing and advertising like Grounded or As Dusk Falls do in my opinion anyway.

But Grounded did get trailers at several events over the past couple of years. Heck, some pretty memorable ones too. I think they might be relying on WoM for Grounded’s full release.

I don’t disagree that more synergy among their socials would be a good thing, or in general them stamping “XGS” over more stuff. But as it is right now, they have (imo) the best brand twitter account out there, they have a successful tiktok account, and their youtube page, while not perfect, does catch plenty of smaller titles trailers wise and gets good viewership numbers.

It’s an intriguing topic for sure, but one that I don’t think matters as much as some might think considering the sheer number of people that play XGS titles on a constant basis.

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In Xbox 360 era they wasn’t. But I guess it was Peter Moore influence who came from Sega?

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Going on an all out “marketing blitz” for something like Grounded 1.0 or Pentiment isn’t worth the time or $$ for them…sorry, just the truth. :man_shrugging:t2:

They do just fine marketing what matters to them in the end and that’s Gamepass…they don’t need to do what Sony or Nintendo do because individual games don’t matter as much as the subscription service does as a whole which differs from those 2….

I think they’re fine in marketing their big games and you’ll see it continue with Starfield, Redfall, etc.

Just my 2 cents…

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Same here. In fact I also never saw any for FH4, Gears 5, or any other exclusives around that time. Meanwhile I see constantly see TV ads for every PS or Switch exclusive (except for Fire Emblem, Astral Chain), on buses, at bus stops, billboards etc.

At least I’m seeing marketing for the Halo TV show…but that’s because of Paramount Plus coming to the UK lol :rofl:

Let’s talk about Marketing shall we? I just got my Master’s degree in it 3 days ago, and am (theoretically) working towards a PHD in it. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, welcome to class one.

Marketing, as a concept, and the way we assess it for Xbox is destined to be narrowly scratching the surface. Why is this the case? Well, to put it bluntly, we don’t know shit. We can guess, we can surmise, we can crawl through eons of interviews and “insider scoops” but we really do not know the full extent of their efforts. Does that mean we shouldn’t try? Heavens no, but it is important to signify.

With this being said, I’d like to take you through all facets of a typical marketing strategy and we can better assess how MS is handling things.

As it stands, the typical Marketing department is divided into the following categories: Marketing Research, Product Development, Communications, Social and Publicity Strategy, Experiential Affairs, Brand Management and Business to Business Affairs (Contrary to popular belief, Xbox is as much a Business-oriented brand as it is a consumer-oriented one). The grand scheme of things is obviously more complex than this, but these are the typical categories.

Of course, the immediate complication here is a lack of consistency across departments. The goal of a marketing department is to oversee all of these factors, but they are already segregated by product (Game Pass’s team is not entirely Hardware’s team which isn’t the B2B or Games team). These teams are then segmented further by publisher and studio, with some teams such as Compulsion and 343 handling Brand Management in-house, whereas Zenimax handles everything in-house. Oh, and ABK is coming. Right off the bat, this is the first problem. It’s also in some regards a good one to have. This reduces employment redundancies, minimizes layoffs and ensures the people who know the product sell it, but from the bat, I suspect asymmetry in info like this is why something like the Grounded debacle happens. Oh, and all 3 publishers in their family (pending regulatory bla bla) outsource some of this stuff too, so that adds some fun.

Now, with this being established, I thought I would dive into each of these categories and assess truthfully how Xbox is doing.

Marketing Research

This is arguably the hardest to quantify as an outsider. We do not know the extent of MS’s marketing research efforts, nor the overall impacts it has. We know, for example, that games like Forza Motorsport and Halo Infinite were focus tested. We also know MS has access to some of the largest data stores in the world.

However, the full extent of their marketing research efforts such as whether they AB test websites, UI elements, mechanics, etc., whether they qualitatively assess the impact of their games, whether they track social listening, etc. is unclear. It is likely they do this, but we do not know.

Product Development

Product Development is another one we cannot fully assess, and it is a case wherein multiple departments and ample research is required. However, to put it simply, there are 6Ps in the world of Marketing.

Product

Place

Price

Promotion

People

Presentation

Beginning with the product, I hazard to judge Xbox in the slightest here. The games they release are often times at least good, Game Pass is great, hardware is great.

In Price, from a consumer POV, they are winning as well. Best value, most affordable, the best bang for your buck. All terms regularly used to describe Xbox offerings.

Place is an interesting one. Xbox is no doubt struggling in some regions and inordinately strong in others. One need only compare last gen in Japan and Mexico to see what I’m getting at. Regardless, Xbox is working to get better in their globalized approach, and early indications in Japan and Korea, for example, are promising. But regardless, It’s still not hard to say that they are lagging behind their competitors here.

People is unclear. Most workers appear happy. Varies by studio. Some places need more help than others in this regard.

However, Promotion and Presentation is where things differ the most. From the jump, Xbox’s promotional efforts are in some regards atypical for the industry. We will touch on them more in the communications and experiential sections, but to make a long story short, they tend to opt for a more digital savvy approach with sales activations over the more traditional approach favoured by Sony and Nintendo. Does this work? That’s where Presentation comes in. This is, in essence, how people view the brand, and this will differ from person to person. You can quantify this through social listening or studies, but as is, this is forever fluid. All indicators point to Xbox, on a large level, being viewed as neutral to positive.

Communications, Social and Publicity Strategy

This, alongside the Promotional strategy section covered, are what most people think of when it comes to marketing. In this section, Xbox is a very mixed bag.

Beginning with the positives, Xbox is surprisingly transparent with the public. Phil, Aaron and Sarah are on Twitter constantly communicating to the public, sharing stories, telling jokes, and sending love and support. Phil went on our freaking podcast in between shows on CNBC and CNN!!! That is a crazy level of communication with the public.

Xbox also largely understands social media. They won the best brand of the year on Twitter for a reason. They do a great job of understanding the needs of their consumers and communicating with them. From 5 second memes to high-effort campaigns, they understand many social platforms.

However, Xbox has also struggled with communication in the past. They have overhyped or otherwise failed to properly set expectations for many events, including their most recent one. They have had large inconsistencies across their departments as mentioned prior. You have had moments like the Bethesda exclusivity question which was dodged and then lead to the clashing of figures in public. You have had moments where games are announced far too early and then rumours are allowed to persist for months before you address them. You’ve had far too much confusion over the terms “Exclusive”, “Console Exclusive”, “Console Launch Exclusive”, “Timed Exclusive” and “Launching Exclusively into Game Pass” that even the most in-tune of us cannot surmise. You’ve had exclusive games announced without platforms, and multiplatform games announced as exclusive. Xbox One versions appear, disappear and reappear from listings. It can be a genuine mess at times.

On the whole, considering the size of the organization, I think Xbox has done more right than wrong here, but that is up for interpretation.

Experiential Affairs

This includes pretty much all events and live activations Xbox has done over the past while. On the whole, I think they have done a good job here. They cater their content well, their pacing is much improved, and anyone who has had the privilege to go to a live event of Xbox’s knows that they treat you like bloody royalty.

The only difficulty here is that they frankly don’t do them as often as a brand of their size should yet tie a significant amount of their announcements to them. Xbox seems aware of this and are seemingly staffing up.

Brand Management

The traditional school of Brand Management basically encompasses what I have just discussed. The new wave school, the merits of which are still debated, argues that the two biggest priorities for the brand are in building Mental Availability and Physical Availaibility.

In terms of their Physical Availability, they are doing well. They are selling more than they can fucking make of the Series X, and most people who want a Series S can get them. They have even invested in ensuring that Xbox is the premiere brand in stores. When you walk into a Game Stop, the first thing you see is an Xbox. That is by design because they paid GS a shitton to make this so. Same thing in many Walmarts. If you want an Xbox, you can find one usually. If you are looking for a system in general, Xbox often shows up first.

In terms of Mental Availability, this is still the biggest challenge facing Xbox. Brand image is a major part here, but an even bigger part is building associations with the brand. You say video game to a Boomer, they think Atari. Say it to a Gen Xer, they think Nintendo or SEGA. Say it to a Millennial, probably PlayStation. That is an uphill battle Xbox is facing right off the bat.

That is why they are trying to associate Xbox with as much as they fucking can. WRPGs? Xbox. Shooters? Xbox. Bethesda and Activision? Xbox. EA? Also Xbox. Premier League Soccer? Xbox. Pringles? Xbox. Paramount+? Xbox. Disney+? Also Xbox. Mandalorian? Xbox. You get the picture.

Xbox is trying to associate with notable games and properties and buying up what they can to own these. Are they successful? In some regards, yes! Most WRPG and FPS fans talk Xbox. CoD will do wonders for Game Pass. Most of the Bethesda community has joined the Xbox community. But they are not perfect here. Sony has strategically aligned with several other brands to great success as well. This is not a battle, it’s a 100-year war.

Business to Business Affairs

This is hard to assess for certain, but this basically just implies that MS is maintaining strong relationships with its suppliers or in this case, devs. Given the deals Game Pass keeps getting, their strong dev-supported initiatives such as Azure and Havok, the recent string of support from Japan, their relationship with partner brands such as Razer and Gamestop and overall dev satisfaction with ID@Xbox, I think they are doing quite well.

Conclusion/TLDR

So, what I have given you is just a taste. I could lecture a class’s worth of content on Xbox. But if there’s anything you takeaway, I’d like it to be the following. Xbox’s marketing, for an organization of its size, is fine. There will be growing pains as formerly independent teams are integrated into the Xbox marketing pipeline.

However, as well, marketing is more than most people realize or give it credit for. It spans all facets of the product and its life over time. I barely scratched the surface here. I did not, for instance, discuss political and legal regulations, opportunity identification, retrospective analysis/post-mortems, creative strategy, brand storytelling and persona generation (my favourite in my field), crisis management, SEO, Content curation/email marketing, channel selection, online advertising, full aspects of traditional/digital, lead generation, funnel preparation and management, copywriting, still “photography”/in-game content capture, graphic design, a “small” thing called B2B sales, etc., etc., etc.

At the end of the day though, when you say “Xbox has marketing problems”, more often than not this is just patently false. Where most people seem to take issue with Xbox is in promotion, advertising, social and communications which makes sense. That’s the public-facing stuff. But it’s just a fraction of what the marketing teams do, so maybe think twice before asking for Greenie to be fired or whatever the hell. Not saying you lot do, you’re cool, but some do.

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Too much logic and reasoning. :smirk:

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