Wizards of the Coast conjures up a higher profile - advertising supplement - On Cable

Brandweek, April 13, 1998

When Magic: The Gathering launched in 1993, the one-on-one combat trading card game took off like a rocket among young men. Four years later, however, it hadn't broken out of its "underground" niche. That's when Wizards of the Coast, the Renton, Wash.-based creator of the game, expanded its marketing strategy.

Magic: The Gathering had attracted an estimated 5 million players in more than 52 countries, but its primary audience was still young men, who thrived on its combative strategy savored its intense and intricate graphics and enjoyed collecting and trading its cards. To expand its customer base, Wizards created a second, introductory game, Portal, and launched a national advertising campaign using cable TV as its centerpiece.

"Portal is an ideal way to introduce new players to the world of Magic: The Gathering," explains Casey Brebberman, director of advertising at Wizards of the Coast. "It provides all the social entertainment and adventure of the original game, but at a level less intricate and complex."

Along with promoting the new game, Wizards wanted to raise its profile, said Tony Ullo, senior account services manager at SFM Media LLC. "It wanted to become known for much more than cards, and to gain the added exposure it needed to make licensing of its images more desirable."

To accomplish these goals, Wizards planned a national advertising campaign built heavily around cable TV, which captured 70 percent of the company's total TV budget and 62 percent of its entire outlay. The balance went into syndicated and spot TV plus a national print campaign in such publications as Rolling Stone, Spin, Swing Bikini, Next Generation, Sci-Fi Universe and Alternative Press.

"Cable provided a national tool, plus an attitude and targetability by allowing us to choose specific networks, Brebberman says. "It was also far more affordable than [broadcast] network, thereby allowing us far greater ad repetition, and for our target 18-34 male audience, repetition is a most important factor."

In search of more of those game-playing males, Wizards launched its first-ever television campaign in July, kicking off with a four-week flight of 30-second spots on MTV, Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel. A second, three month flight added time on fX, ESPN, USA Network and E! Entertainment Television and ran from September through early December.

Wizards tailored its cable buys by picking shows that excel in reaching its target "generation X" demographic. "On Sci-Fi, we picked Mystery Science Theater 3000, Twilight Zone and Tech War," Brebberman says. "On fX, we bought X-Files and NYPD Blue. We aired in snow boarding shows on ESPN and in South Park on Comedy Central. On E!, we selected The Howard Stem Show and we tied in with USA Network's Up All Night movies."

In addition to its ad placements, Wizards took advantage of a number of promotional opportunities tied in with cable networks. MTV's summer programming umbrella, Motel California, included segments in which professional tour players competed in a Portal tournament, notes Carol Schneider, senior director at SFM Media. On the Sci-Fi Channel, a two-minute Sci-Fi Buzz vignette featured the game and listed tournaments being played at the time. Later, the network boiled that down to a 30-second spot that aired repeatedly during Wizards' first flight. Comedy Central regularly showed its on-air talent playing Portal in an interstitial spot "that was dropped in almost like a network ID," Schneider says.

Such promotional support "is entirely different from the scene at non-cable networks where similar promotional tie-ins would be almost impossible to either achieve or afford," Schneider says.

After the first four-week flight of TV commercials ended, Wizards research found that national awareness of its game and company name had jumped 8 percent, Brebberman says. The second flight helped solidify the gains. "The campaign definitely opened doors--not just in terms of customer awareness but by putting us on the map with other key companies. These were firms with whom we might want to do promotions or participate in future business and/or co-branding opportunities."

For the future, Brebberman is confident that "cable will likely be part of any television effort. It's particularly helpful when you have a product where the goal is not to appeal to mass audiences, but to expand beyond a core customer niche."

She indicates this may happen this summer when Wizards launches a second Portal product designed to offer another means of entry into the fairly cerebral challenges posed by the original Magic: The Gathering.

"Our cable advertising efforts really legitimized the game for everyone we're trying to reach," Brebberman says. "It gave it a `cool' factor it didn't have before. It seems that in cable, you're known by the atmosphere and climate in which you promote. And for Wizards of the Coast, cable provided a number of `atmospheres' that were just right for our products."