CASE HISTORY AND SAMPLE CLIPS
Launching of the Phantum Game Service
Infinium Labs approached The Bohle Company to promote the unveiling of its flagship Phantom Game Service, an end-to-end, on-demand game service to be delivered over broadband to a consumer electronics device in the living room, launching 4th quarter. Infinium was planning its first public demonstration of the device and service at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in early May.
The request was not entirely straightforward. The company had been founded by an entrepreneur with a spotty business record (he’d had some successes along with some failed start-ups in the past) who was under intense scrutiny by skeptical investors and industry pundits. Many negative claims had already been made about the viability of the service, which was behind schedule. The company had done a reverse merger into a public company shell, becoming an over-the-counter stock. The naysayers were speculating that Infinium shares were of dubious value, based on earlier public announcements regarding the launch of the service and other press release claims. Several websites had been mounted by investors and industry doubters, including one that was headed, “Where is Phantom?” Rumors of the company’s demise were rampant.
The bright spot for Infinium, however, had been the recent hiring of a game industry veteran, Kevin Bachus, a founder of the Xbox at Microsoft and an executive with tremendous personal credibility, as president and COO. Bachus had begun to bring in his own team, a top Microsoft engineering manager, also from Xbox; an operations guy who could put a company together; a strong sales team to go after retailers to sell the service; and a charismatic game industry executive with excellent credentials to bring in the content deals.
OBJECTIVES:
Be the most talked about product/service at E3, allowing Infinium Labs to:
• Restore credibility for the company
• Raise money for a fall launch
• Interest publishers in distributing their back-catalog of games over the service
• Get retailers on board to sell the hardware and service in their stores
• Generate consumer excitement about and anticipation for the Phantom Game Service
TBC advised Infinium that much work needed to be done ahead of E3. The company was unknown to many parts of the industry, and its sullied reputation with insiders had to be corrected. While digital distribution was being tested in many corners (Yahoo! had launched a game service into the home; GameSpy was talking about direct download of games), Infinium’s technology was unproven, and the viability of a digital distribution game service was still in debate. From strictly a bandwidth standpoint, only small games were making it successfully onto PCs in the home. There was fierce skepticism from hard-core PC gamers.
Infinium’s recommendation was to start with a large San Francisco pre-show press conference, where Bachus would confront the rumors and talk about company plans. TBC countered that Infinium was not Microsoft and so we did not feel we would get an editorial turnout of substance for our initial activity. And, key editors were located throughout the country. We also felt that an open conference, where the CEO’s former business history, as-of-yet unmet claims and earlier technology problems could be brought up, would fuel even greater concerns.
Instead, we counseled that we should set up one-on-one interviews with key editors, allowing Kevin to tell his story forcefully and controlled, in a personal setting. He would give details of the company’s plans and talk about the Phantom Game Service, under embargo, and then answer questions.
After these individual meetings, we would move on to E3.
STRATEGIES:
The following plan was then agreed to:
• Bachus would personally brief all editors under embargo, with the first real details about the service, pricing and firm launch date for the service to hit the wire and break in industry newsletters and on game sites the Monday before E3
• TBC would pre-book appointments for the first public demo of the service at the show, media train the entire crew, staff the booth and handle interviews from walk-ins
EXECUTION:
Media/Analyst Tour: With only two weeks’ lead-time, The Bohle Company put Bachus on the road to New York, Boston, Washington D.C., San Francisco/San Jose and Los Angeles. Appointments were spread over three weeks, allowing him to meet with investors and investment banking firms in between.
We arranged nearly 35 appointments. That included game industry beat reporters at the top business publications, such as Cliff Edwards at BusinessWeek and Rob Guth at The Wall Street Journal; the key marketing analysts following the industry at IDC, Jupiter Research and Zelos Group, among others; and all the key game news sites and trade publications, including GameSpot, Game Daily, IGN/GameSpy, EGM, GMR, Game Industry News and PC Gamer.
We also saw the major investment bankers covering the game industry at top firms: Banc of America Securities, UBS Warburg, Wedbush Morgan and Credit Suisse Boston, to name a few.
Pre-Bookings at E3: More than 50 additional press and analyst appointments were pre-booked.
First Day: Due to interest generated by word of mouth discussion following the tour, the news stories breaking two days before E3 and TBC calls to media ahead of the show, the booth was mobbed. TBC managed more than 200 interviews and demos for the press the first day alone.
TOTAL PRESS COVERAGE:
• 500 press/analyst demos during E3; 5,000 public demos of the service
• 300 news stories in the weeks following E3
• 25 in-booth broadcast interviews, including affiliates from nearly all the major TV news networks, including CNN, CBS, NBC, Fox, Warner Brothers/WB and UPN
• 101,000,000 total estimated media impressions
EVALUATION:
• A top officer of every single large publisher visited the Infinium booth during the show to see a demo of the service and to get a briefing on the company’s plans
• Best Buy, Circuit City, Electronics Boutique and Fry’s Electronics all sent their buyers
• The stock jumped 27 percent on the first day of E3 following our news break
• On the strength of its E3 showing, Infinium Labs was able to raise a $50 million equity financing
