Entertainment brands: marketing earns perennial 2nd tiers top recognition - Top Brands 2002 - entertainment software, video games

DSN Retailing Today, Oct 28, 2002 by Doug Desjardins

There were no surprises in the top two slots in this year's Top Brands survey of Entertainment Software. As usual, Microsoft dominated the field with 21% of consumers making products from the software giant their top pick. Another industry giant, Sony, placed second with 9.6% and Hewlett-Packard finished a close third with 8.4%.

But the two companies that ranked fourth and fifth--Electronic Arts Sports (EA Sports) and Macintosh--are newcomers to the list. Neither company has ever ranked among the top 10 in this category--let alone the top five--but their appearance is no fluke. In both cases, their rise is a product of aggressive marketing and brand building in two highly competitive categories.

EA Sports is the sports entertainment arm of Redwood City, Calif.-based video game publisher Electronic Arts. While most publishers have several sports-related games scattered among their slate of new releases, EA has more than 20 new titles spread across the three major consoles. "They produce a lot of games, but they also consistently put out quality product year after year," said Ryan Jones, an analyst with The Yankee Group in Boston. "They just dominate that category."

The publisher produces games for major sports, such as hockey ("NIL 2003") and basketball ("NBA Live"), along with games for enthusiasts of car racing ("Nascar Thunder") and golf ("Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2002"). In addition to producing a wide variety of games, the publisher has patiently built franchises that have given it a solid base. They include perennial hits, such as "Madden Football," which has been around since the early 1990s, and "FIFA Soccer."

EA Sports' entry into the top five brands in Entertainment Software also may be due to the debut of two new game consoles in 2001. The company has broadened its reach by manufacturing games for Nintendo's GameCube, which skews to a younger player, and Microsoft's X-Box (the debut of X-Box in November of last year also may help explain why Microsoft was the top brand chosen by 21% of consumers in 2002 compared with 16% in 2001).

But Jones credits much of EA Sports' success to its long-term effort to build its brand by plugging the EA Sports logo wherever and whenever it can. "EA Sports is the only publisher whose logo pops up whenever you boot up one of their games and appears in every commercial ," said Jones. "So they've done a really great job of putting their name out there, especially considering that they don't appear in a lot of mass media."

Macintosh's climb into the top five is another example of a veteran player maintaining a strong consumer base and continuing to innovate. Macintosh was the top pick of 4% of consumers surveyed who were shopping for Entertainment Software. "That makes sense because they've consistently had about 5% or 6% market share," said Jones.

Other factors also may have helped Macintosh make the list this year. Last year, Apple opened the first of its Apple retail stores and has been gradually expanding the chain (the most recent opening was in Troy, Mich., on Oct. 12). The company's .Mac suite of Internet and software services has attracted 180,000 new subscribers since it launched this summer, and its new Jaguar OS X is its fastest-selling operating system ever.

The company also is in the midst of its high-profile "Switch" campaign, launched in June, to lure Windows users away from long-time rival Microsoft. While the verdict is still out on how successful the effort has been, it's shown that Apple is determined to move beyond being a niche player buoyed by a dedicated following of Macheads.

"They've worked really hard on their 'Switch' campaign and they're pushing to reach beyond the standard Mac user," said Jones. "A lot of people are expecting Mac's market share to expand during the next five years."

Other companies that made gains in this year's survey include Disney, which was chosen by 3.3% of respondents compared with 1.5% last year, and The Learning Company, which improved to 2.8% compared with 0.8% in 2001. Those who lost ground include Gateway, which dipped from 3.8% to 1.5%, and Hewlett-Packard, which occupies the third spot with 8.4%, but was picked by 10.8% of consumers in last year's survey.

Consumers in this year's survey showed a high degree of brand loyalty in the Entertainment Software category. Only 32.5% of respondents said they would buy another brand of software if the one they were looking for was not available where they were shopping (that compared with 45.4% in the same survey in 2001). And 41.6% of consumers said they would skip the purchase rather than buy another brand of software.