Interesting Example of Branding: Pro Evolution Soccer
A blurb for Pro Evolution Soccer:
Pro Evolution Soccer is a football video game series developed by Konami. From 1996 to 2011, this series of game has developed from the primitive Goal Storm to the much more advanced PES 2011. Despite recent mediocrity in sales performance, strong repeated sales in the first half of 2011 and 70 million accumulative sales suggest the impressive brand power of PES game series. Although branding techniques used for PES are largely limited to internet-based techniques and mainly play an informative role, PES still work hard to borrow and create ideas of the most efficient ways of marketing. Besides traditional branding methods such as issuing game trailers, signing cover athletes and releasing game DEMOs, PES tried hard to differentiate itself from FIFA by establishing a user community that allows PES fans to enjoy soccer competition and share information online. This branding technique is not as simple and superficial as the old ones because it really used the game itself as the tenant for branding. It managed to capture soccer game players by their eagerness to compete and communicate.
(Information of the blurb is drawn from the article below)
Below is the referential article:
1. What exactly is successful branding?
Prior to any introduction and measurement of a certain brand, a standard of measuring a successful branding needs to be set up. It’s should not be a subjective standard that is prone to change due to the nature of individual opinions, but rather a comparatively objective standard which is set up by prestigious authorities.
I’ve searched on the Internet and found some articles related with “a standard of successful branding” which were written by experienced advertising practitioners such as Laura Lake and Lori Weiman. Since an instant search will not be the best and most in-depth one, I guess their opinions of “successful branding” are not quite far from the true definition.
Laura Lake’s definition of a branding success is that the brand is seen as the only one that provides a solution to the customers’ problem. She seems to have a higher standard by using strong word like “only” than the one characterized by getting the brand’s target market to choose it over the competition. Lori Weiman mentioned advertiser ranking as a direct and easy way to measure the successfulness of branding, but most part of her article criticized this path for idler.
Basically, a standard of a successful branding is somewhat hard to find or is distributed in a graded manner. It’s obviously too strong and unreachable for a brand to be the sole choice of their customers; and it is even less likely that a mere advertiser ranking will tell everything of a successful brand. Thus, I tried to mix those standards and practise a little bit eclecticism. A successful brand should have a steady user loyalty and a wide brand recognition which occupies a significant portion of its target customers. Also, a good sales performance in both short term and long run has a voice in measuring brand successfulness.
2. Brief introduction of Pro Evolution Soccer
Pro Evolution Soccer is a football video game series developed by Konami. Every year, the version of the game is released first as Winning Eleven in Japan, and after a few months a slightly modified version is released worldwide, in two different packages: World Soccer: Winning Eleven for the Americans, and Pro Evolution Soccer for the rest of the world. Additionally, in Japan and Korea a localised version is released, featuring local leagues and teams including European ones. From 1996 to 2011, this series of game has developed from the primitive Goal Storm to the much more advanced PES 2011. The evolution of this video game, as its name suggests, broadened its customer base and expanded its influence on the young generation all over the world.
3. Is Pro Evolution Soccer an example of successful brand?
I did a little research on the Internet in order to see whether Pro Evolution Soccer matches the standard above. Although it’s much of a hasty research but it may demonstrate a more structured judgment of PES’s performance.
1) Customer Loyalty:
Strong repeated sales of PES game were reported in the first half of 2011. Repeated sales may indicate the interest of purchasers in the prospective advancement of the game (for example: advanced 3d effect of football field and more natural action emulation of soccer players) and a firm customer base.
2) Brand Recognition:
Although sales of PES game were down 1.8% to 188,308 million yen compared to the same nine-month period in 2010, the game has occupied a rather big market worldwide. In Feb. 2011, Konami has revealed that lifetime Pro Evolution Soccer sales have exceeded 68.8 million units globally. However, compared to its major competitor, FIFA Game Series which occupies a 100 million or more accumulative sales, PES still has a long way to go. But PES’s effort in branding has successfully captured a considerable portion of market from FIFA’s hands.
3) Sales Performance:
Sales performance of PES game in 2011 experienced a decrease, which is obviously an unpleasant signal for the new PES 2011 game. Increasing game difficulty may block former PES fans from playing the game in a relaxed mood; what’s worse, failure to purchase the sheer volume of licenses of numerous football clubs has hindered the game from achieving a sheer worldwide success.
Based on the above analysis, we can judge PES’s success from two perspectives. Historically speaking, PES was born 3 years after the first baby of FIFA but successfully became the nemesis of FIFA for 15 years. The series managed to obtain customer loyalty and worldwide brand recognition step by step through imitative branding techniques and standout game qualities. I can hardly say it’s not a success. But these 2 or 3 years, PES lingered at the crossroads of making the game playable and making the game professional and lost many fans because of several abrupt turnarounds. That may be counted as a failure for PES game series recently.
4. Old and new tools of branding for the success of PES series
As the above has mentioned, PES game series did have some historical success in branding. The major branding techniques for PES’s progress are issuing game trailers, signing cover athletes, releasing game DEMOs and so on.
Although various ways are available for the branding process, there are two major issues that should be clarified with regard to the depressed nature of the sales of football game series. First, the target customers account for only a small proportion of the intersection of football fans and netizens. Thus the branding techniques used for promoting PES game are mainly narrowly internet-based. Second, from my personal viewpoint, the PES fans who directly chose PES or switched from FIFA to PES made their choice mainly based on the reputation of high level of difficulty and playability, which means branding techniques play a more informative than persuasive role. This will definitely weaken the functions of branding.
Even if the above casts a shadow over what I will introduce next, I consider branding a very important way to set up the unique reputation of PES games and present the existing or potential fans with a bright vista of prospective game.
By issuing game trailers, PES demonstrates the advancements of the new game and leaks several game scenes to the public. The trailers are always made exciting, dynamic and professionally systematic in order to attract both the rational fans who emphasize the actual playability of the game and emotional fans who always immerse themselves in the reverie of sense experience.
Via cover athletes, PES establishes a worldclass reputation. From nobody to somebody, from Henry and Owen to Messi and C. Ronaldo, cover athletes have played an indispensible role for the popularity of PES games. Following tight the trend of soccer, PES always find the player who has the ability to attract the largest number of fans.
Prior to the official release, game DEMO is released for the real game experience of fans. It acts both as a constructive method inducing later purchase and a destructive method causing retreat.
All of the those branding techniques mentioned above have also been adopted by FIFA. Although these branding measures may be independently discovered by both sales team, some game critics tend to treat FIFA as the initiator and PES the follower or imitator because of the earlier birth of FIFA and Japanese long-established fame of imitation.
In order to differentiate the game from their noble trailblazer and rival, PES sales team think about new approaches of branding. One of the most creative approaches they’ve taken is to blend the game with branding.
They set up an user ID system for information sharing and game playing between PES fans. Fans can enjoy using their favorite league teams or the teams built by themselves to rival others via the system; more importantly, through on-line matches and forum discussions, fans make friends with each other and feel a sense of belonging. This approach provides a great community for the PES fans and keeps on attracting outsiders to join in. This branding technique is not as simple and superficial as the old ones because it really used the game itself as the tenant for branding. It managed to capture soccer game players by their eagerness to compete and communicate.
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