This morning I entered 7-11 to buy some water for my daughter and saw Zynga Water next to Poland Spring. My reaction when I saw this was similar to the one I had when I saw Disney Eggs in Shop Rite. "What in the hell is Zynga doing making water?!" Upon close inspection of the label, in fact, it does seem that Zynga is producing and manufacturing the water. A Google search on this returns nothing, so I may be the first one commenting on this, and if I am wrong, please let me know. This is distinct from the company's wonderful efforts and partnership with Water.org, where Zynga is donating $1 from every chip purchase from its Texas Hold 'Em game.
I ended up buying the Poland Spring, by the way. But, I started to think about this revenue model for Zynga, continuing to think about this as I paid, entered the car and turned the key. By the time I dropped my daughter at camp about ten minutes later, my opinion had changed. It actually makes tons of sense! I think it makes more sense for Zynga, but to some extent makes sense for Disney and other consumer-oriented brands also. About 65 million people play Zynga games every day. It is free to play. These people identify with the games, and although Zynga's brand is still too new to influence consumers like me to buy Zynga water, ultimately, with the right incentives, consumers will choose to buy Zynga water, over Poland Spring. After all, do I REALLY know that Poland Spring water is better than Zynga water? Does it REALLY come from a spring? And, why shouldn't Zynga water come from a spring also.
I'd be more inclined at this stage of the "game" to purchase Hold 'Em Water with an incentive that with my purchase I will receive 250,000 chips when I log in. Poland Spring is immediately crushed, when Zynga decides to market to me in that way. Or, with my purchase of 50 "Zynga" Hold 'Em Water bottles, I get a free entry into a Vegas Zynga-sponsored actual poker tournament. Now, there's a real incentive for me to purchase water, because it delivers a real value-add to a consumer who likes Poker. What is Poland Spring left with to market? Nothing.
We live in all kinds of worlds now. I live in my actual Poker Group world, where conversations are unique to 10 weird guys. I also live in my tennis group world, where each guy has his own aging ailment and we talk about all kinds of stuff between points. Then, my family world with its trials and tribulations, my blog world, hedge fund world, tech world, and yes, gaming worlds.
So, for me to buy products which communicate with me on an intimate level makes all the sense in the "world", as long as they're good quality products.
Zynga is a virtual world marketing organization that has every opportunity to monetize with physical products in the real world, and THIS is the reason I will buy the stock when it goes public, and I would invest in hedge funds who own the company, or private equity pools who invest in similar themes, and most importantly why I would drink Zynga Water.
Would you?
It's an effective marketing practice, plain and simple. As internet companies continue to seep into the mainstream this will become par for the course. How they integrate their rewards with other companies or choose to go it alone will make or break the program.
ReplyDeleteSomething to think about is if we will see an ocean of individual programs or a few giant reward networks dominating the scene.
I think this is more than just an effective marketing practice but really a shift in product paradigm - from exclusively virtual to something you can touch and feel. Perhaps Zynga will be able to leverage their online presence and loyalty of to something profitable offline as well. I mean think of all the things you could launch stemming from the farms in farmville...
ReplyDeleteI work for the company that produces the water for their Water.org efforts.
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