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Activision Blizzard's Jonathan Stringfield on how advertisers can attach themselves to gamers' loyalty to specific franchises and how to find community in gaming. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.DAMIAN (00:01):I'm Damian Fowler.ILYSE (00:02):And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. DAMIAN (00:04):And welcome to this edition of The Current podcast.ILYSE (00:10):This week we're delighted to talk with Jonathan Stringfield, VP of Global Business Research and Marketing at Activision Blizzard.DAMIAN (00:17):Activision Blizzard made headlines in October. Microsoft closed its $69 billion deal with the gaming company, the home of legendary games like Candy Crush, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Activision says it's ready for the next chapter as part of the Microsoft family,ILYSE (00:34):As well as being a VP at the company. Jonathan is also the author of Get In the Game, an Essential Guide for Marketers and Execs who want to integrate their brands with Modern Games and eSports published in 2022 by Wiley.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (00:53):Sure. Well, so first of all, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to, uh, to be here today. Um, and, and again, I think the book is realistically a reflection of where we are in the greater marketing agency as it pertains to gaming, that I think there's been a lot of opportunities that have existed over the years. Um, certainly the marketplace has matured in recent years, but overall the level of investment in gaming is considerably lower relative to I think the amount that the fans are investing in it, the extent to which that this is consuming a greater amount of their time. And that on the whole, there's a lot of questions from marketers in terms of what's the right way to integrate and realistically no good resources in terms of how do we start to get folks to understand what is ostensibly not just a a form of entertainment. It's a new way in which people are increasingly interacting with media more generally. So the book was in some ways kind of a starter, what I was hoping to be a bit of a foundational educational piece to really kind of advance this conversation forward in the broader marketing industry. Yeah,DAMIAN (01:51):There's definitely intense interest and I've noticed even in the last 12 months it's picked up incredibly. Can you give us a sense of the scale now of gaming worldwide to sort of establish that, that context? Yeah,JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (02:05):For sure. I mean, you know, I think the latest estimates are the total gaming population will be about three and a half billion by next year. So somewhere between a third and a half of the population on the planet plays games, right. Substantial. Right. So, you know, I, I think that alone is, you know, kind of one of these light bulb moments for folks that, you know, when we think about what it means to play a video game more generally, again, you kind of get that classic view of like someone with a controller or maybe at a PC or what have you. But realistically, one of the biggest segments of gaming fans out there is, is mobile. Right? And since everyone has, or virtually everyone has a mobile device globally that can handle games like Candy Crush, what we found is that the surface area for people that enjoy games is just that much bigger. So, you know, when you look at the stats and see that, you know, conceivably the revenue that's attributed to gaming dwarfs things like film, movies, music, or what have you, it's because of the scale of the industry first and foremost in terms of how many fans have proliferated certainly in the last decade or so.DAMIAN (03:06):Yeah. What's interesting is people have certain preconceptions about gamers and gamers have changed over the years. I remember when I was coming about, I had an Atari 800 and I used to play Frogger. I don't really consider myself a gamer anymore, but could you give us a little insight in terms of who are gamers?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (03:25):Yeah, so even the term gamer is kind of interesting in so far that it already kind of attributes a label that then kind of sparks preconceptions that are mine, right? So, you know, if we take a step back, we don't talk about, you know, folks that are watching movies as cinephiles per se, right? Or folks that are really into music with, with very specific terms. So in that world, even just thinking about gamers themselves, that kind of just entails someone who has or really kind of pulls some degree of identity from it, which is certainly the case. There are folks that like readily identify as a gamer and are, you know, very into it. And one of these, you know, spend multiple, multiple hours and lots of investment in the ecosystem and so on and so forth. But then there's just as many, actually many more folks who don't necessarily consider themselves a gamer, but they definitely play video games, right?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (04:11):And a lot of it is on mobile phones, but then some of these same folks do on consoles and PC and what have you. And one of the biggest trends we'll continue to see in the gaming industry broadly is that we're really looking at a world where we're trying to make sure that the experiences that we provide can be accessed on virtually any device. So I think by that metric, what we'll find is that the, the, the definition is gonna continue to expand. So going back to your question, like who is a gamer? I mean, it, again, it's it's a little bit hokey and we say it a lot, but it is kind of everyone to a certain degree. And it's just, it is the different ways that folks are entering what is an ecosystem, not just an individual channel that kind of differentiates them.DAMIAN (04:50):Yeah. So it's not a sort of niche thing and the, the definition of gamer has here, the two maybe been a sort of niche thing, but what you're saying is it's definitely not that.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (04:59):And, and, and I think there's no better example than what's been happening in recent years, right? So that even that concept of a gamer kind of implies that this is a different group of folks. This is an abnormal group of people that is doing something other folks do, don't or don't do. And again, that's just not the case. Right? And again, look at things like the extent to which you see gaming IP in major movies, television shows. I think there's some, last I counted, 40 or 50 individual projects for TV or movie being developed from game IP right now.ILYSE (05:29):Wow, that's a lot. .JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (05:30):It's a lot. And, and the, the other thing, and, and again, it's good now. So like there, there is this world where, you know, if you think about, you know, how games have been portrayed in movies like maybe in the early nineties, like wasn't that great, right? Mm-hmm. and like kind of left a bad taste in people's mouth, not just folks that weren't fans of the games, but candidly even the fans of the game. And that's really changed in recent years. And I think, again, we could talk a lot about why that happened and partially it's, you know, Hollywood, I think taking the stories in these games more seriously, but then also understanding that there's a big established fandom here. And if they want to bring this experience to a different screen, they need to resonate with that. So what that means in general is that it's just becoming not something that's an offset of culture. It's popular culture. And I think what we'll see in coming years is that already it's the case with even generations as young. And I'm definitely throwing up air quotes 'cause I'm in this generation as millennials, they spend most of their time gaming relative to other forms of media. And I don't think the marketing world has caught up with that fact.ILYSE (06:28):Do you happen to have a favorite gaming movie?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (06:30):My favorite gaming movie? Oh, I mean, you know, honestly, at this point I do have a lot of heart for the old ones from the nineties just because, you know, that's what I grew up with was were those, and, and for me it was just so cool to kind of see them even be represented on screen like that. So like the original Super Mario Brothers movie and Street Fighter and things like that, like all really cool projects. I think the one that really kind of spoke to me personally, um, and again, it feels like this is gonna be like a bit of a pitch for the company, and I promise you it isn't is actually the Warcraft movie UhhuhILYSE (07:01):.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (07:01):Because at that point, by the time that movie came out, I'd been playing Warcraft for a decade at least. And again, I'm not alone that that's a very common behavior you've seen. So again, think about Super Mario Brothers, any of these other movies, you know, folks are coming to this with the intention and with the knowledge that they've been engrossed in those worlds for 10 years, 20 years, some times, 30 years, they're gonna have expectations in terms of how that's portrayed in that media. Yeah.ILYSE (07:25):And you know, you mentioned it's very much like a family kind of affair. Um, one of the most interesting insights we saw on your site is that actually like one in five gamers are actually made up of women with children. So would you say mom's got game ?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (07:40):Mom definitely has game and, and parents have game and, and you know, it it's, it, there's, I think again, with that whole concept of how gaming is increasingly encroaching upon modern culture is that you now have folks that grew up gaming, and again, I'm, I'm definitely in this vanguard who have basically been playing video games their entire life, have kept up with the hobby throughout, and now we have homes and mortgages and kids and a bad hip and things like that. Like we are the principal shoppers in the household, and then we share that with our children, right? Like, and again, it's like anything else you think about how like, sports team, fandom, proliferates, that doesn't happen in abstract. Like kids don't come outta the womb being, you know, rooting for the Cubs or something like that. It's because of a shared connection with their, with their family. Same thing here. So both of my kids, they are big time gaming fans. And again, probably a lot of my influence on that, but even now I have one that's off to college and we can still hang out, right? Because we can hang out in virtual worlds. And again, I think there's something powerful about that.ILYSE (08:37):Activision has some of the world's most iconic, most played games, candy Crush, call of Duty, world of Warcraft. I know myself, I'm a big Candy Crush player. I play it every day on the subway. , can you give us a sense of how and why these games prove so compelling?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (08:54):I mean, I I, I think there, there's a couple things we could look at, right? So on the one hand, almost all of the, like the games you just mentioned have been around for decades, right? So just as it stands now they're popular because there's been something about them that has kind of hooked someone into that. And again, whether it's like really novel and interesting mechanics, like Candy Crush, whether it's something like social connectivity from a game like World of Warcraft, whether they're just really interested in the story of the world, like something like Diablo, there's been something within those games that speaks to folks, right? And it speaks to 'em in such a way that, you know, again, when you think about media in general that we get engrossed in, that we come fans in, it's something that we develop a lot of affinity for.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (09:34):And what's different, I think for something like a video game is that, you know, you're not just watching a protagonist in many cases, you are the protagonist. You are I impacting and have agency within that world. So the extent to which that you can form connectivity with that media, it's gonna be so much greater. And then again, you layer on other fans that are participating with it, your connection with them. And you know, you'll hear their stories about people that've been playing World of War crap that made lifelong friends, they met their wife, they got married through the game, they got married in the game. Even , like that's, you know, kind of speaks to how powerful this can be for folks that this is where they find common ground to talk with others about their passions. WouldDAMIAN (10:08):That getting married in a game, uh, would that constitute a premium gaming experience?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (10:14):? I would certainly think they think so. Right? And, and you know, and again, there, there's something to be said about like, you know, it, it's one of these things where folks will literally get married in the real world and then have a ceremony in the game, and like they buy each other rings or exchange items or whatnot. And, and you know, again, I think it's easy to kind of sit back and be like, wow, that's kind of weird. Like, but if that is the basis of your relationship, if you met your partner and participated and had adventures and shared stories with them for 10 years, 15 years, then yeah, it's meaningful. And, and, and again, I think these are the types of connections that folks are not quite in tuned with yet. But it speaks to again, how much this type of media tends to affect its fandomDAMIAN (10:57):From, from a marketing point of view, the what does it mean to have a premium access to premium gaming experiences? And what kind of research do you do around this to define that concept?JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (11:09):I mean, I think the, first of all, I think we can take the step back that like premium is by far the most abused word in all of advertising, right? Like straight up, right? And again, I, I think that it's hard to find like hard and fast rules in terms of what does or does not constitute it. But in my mind, what I think will, will always tend to be the case is like, you'll see that on the one hand it's these games that have large followings and they have large followings for different reasons. Again, whether it's engagement, the mechanics, the story, social connections, or what have you. And realistically, one of the parts that I find most satisfying about my job is that, you know, these are household names, right? Like even if you don't really play video games, you have heard of Call of Duty, you have heard of Warcraft, you have heard of Candy Crush.JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (11:48):So there is definitely a qualitative and quantitative difference for games of that type relative to, to others where there might be experience. And again, that isn't to say that there's, you know, a big differentiation or that like folks shouldn't explore all kinds of places within the, in the gaming environment. But I think it is important to understand that, particularly in these premium experiences, one, a lot of love and care goes in on the development side. And then two, the fans have a lot of love and care for those environments as well. So what we've found in terms of research that we've done, both as it pertains to how our, um, you know, our players think about these experiences or what have you, is that they realistically see that brands when integrated into these titles that are kind of like the more household name premium games, they start to associa…
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