Warner Chappell Music team up with Electronic Arts

And we dive into transmedia storytelling & Wow BAO's loyalty play in Roblox

Author

Joe Condon
April 23, 2024

Welcome to Edition #6 of The SEG3 Report.

We know you wouldn’t dream of not reading the whole report, but today, there’s an added incentive to read all the way to the bottom… As well as getting the latest scoop on Warner Chappell’s partnership with EA and a nod to the benefits of transmedia storytelling, you will find out how you can claim FREE food by playing games.

What more could you ask for?

Here’s what you need to know this week:

Without further ado, let’s dive in…

Warner Chappell to administer EA music library

Warner Chappell (WCM) has struck a deal with Electronic Arts (EA) to licence its music catalogue for use in their games. From a quick search, that means over 150,000 composers/artists at their fingertips!

Why you should care?

I spent many, many hours playing FIFA Ultimate Team in my teenage years (as I’m sure many of you did), and as much as I remember the gameplay, the thing that I remember the most is the soundtracks from the games.

Some of the songs are ingrained into the deepest depths of my brain. And when I hear them, it instantly takes me back to when I was playing the games with my friends.

I think that’s a power that only music can bring. The power to transport you to a moment in time, an experience, a memory, within an instant.

That unconscious connection just reinforces the additional value that a well thought out music strategy can have to the wider experience of your sporting event, film/series or games.

And of course it goes without saying that the big labels like WCM have the know-how to curate that magic mixture to compliment any scenario.

WCM’s VP of Global Sync & Media Original Music, Rich Robinson, said “Video games have long been at the centre of pop culture, with many so cinematic in nature that they’re also driving ideas to the big screen. Music has always been fundamental to EA’s storytelling, and this partnership opens the doors for us to amplify the incredible scores they already have as well as connect them with our own talented storytellers – our songwriters – to shape future narratives.”

We’d agree that gaming is central to culture, and is fast becoming the avenue of choice to develop & market new IP, which brings us onto the next topic…

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Lagging ad spend in-games & transmedia storytelling

We came across this article that focused on the crossover between gaming and entertainment, and how it can help to unlock ad spend. Worth the read for the 4 pushbacks alone, but there was a nod to the economics behind a successful game vs other mediums that we wanted to dive into.

Why you should care

Many big publishers are now implementing transmedia strategies. Just another slightly complicated word for multi-channel. As it rightly points out in the piece, look at the successes of the Last of Us, Arcane and others that have taken gaming native IP and told the lore/story across more traditional channels to a more traditional audience.

Why is this interesting?

Gaming Brands are following the Entertainment playbook; build the IP with everything you do. Nothing is more important than growing the IP’s reach and attracting new audiences, all whilst ensuring the IP is only used in the right environments.

The incentive behind expanding the IP is very different however. For entertainment brands, the main revenue channel is the movie/series release; franchising out from there.

On the flip side, for most gaming brands, the rationale behind storytelling across many channels is to drive users back to the game. 

Why?

Developing a successful hit game dwarfs a successful TV series or film, by some margin.

The reach & monetisation opportunities are much larger, so to some degree, the expansion into other channels can be seen as a pure marketing play.

Now, there aren’t many brands that have the time, resources or expertise to build out multiple strategies, produce content specific to numerous channels & market simultaneously, but certainly in our fragmented world where the audience is spread across so many different channels, choosing where to be & what to invest your time & budget into can be difficult.

The learning from the transmedia strategies of these big game publishers is to try and match the channel to your IP and double down on production for those channels rather than spreading yourself too thin. Always remembering to drive new users acquired through these channels back to your owned & operated channels, where you can engage & monetise them in a more efficient way.

Which leads nicely onto the third topic…

Join us at SEG3 London on June 27-28!

Universal Pictures, Arsenal, United Rugby Championship and other leaders across sports, entertainment, gaming & technology will be descending on London on June 27-28.

Will you?

Wow, BAO’s in Roblox

Wow BAO have teamed up with Sawhorse Productions, Flaunt & Paytronix to integrate their Hot Buns Club Loyalty Program into Roblox.

Why you should care

Merging physical and digital experiences. 

Loyalty. 

Roblox. 

This experience is the holy grail of combining hot topics, but there’s some cool (and valuable) learnings from this.

Now, clearly this isn’t about trying to get folks to eat virtual Bao Buns - it’s about rewarding digital engagement with physical rewards, and meeting potential customers where they are to attract them to engage with your brand IRL. It’s something that the same group did together with Hilton for Slivingland earlier this year too.

Across any industry, acquiring new users is hard. Keeping them is even harder. Loyalty is all about increasing the stickiness of the customer.

By connecting the Roblox experience to IRL through the loyalty program, the brand can shift the needle from just driving awareness to getting those users to engage through an action and more importantly, into their own ecosystem. You’d imagine that’s a pretty vital KPI to warrant the investment into building the experience.

It looks like the Wow BAO team are thinking long-term here however, as CEO Geoff Alexander said their push into the Metaverse is a long-term play based on the belief that the investment will pay off as more and more gamers look to garner IRL rewards.

Banking that by being where the target audience is, supporting their passions and rewarding them for their engagement will put them top of mind when it comes to purchasing decisions is the calling card of any sponsorship or advertising campaign, so I’ll definitely be keeping tabs on how this progresses.

You can check out the mini-games or at least how you can claim a free box of Wow BAO by completing the achievements here.

In other news…

A quick round up of other stories we found interesting this week!

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!