I’ve been on a journey to understand interactive advertising. As a TV & promo producer, I thought it would be easy. One of my most difficult challenges was to get television networks & ad agencies to think about coordinating their advertising between first & second screens. Last fall I did a qualitative test with FOX, and the results were amazing. I’m currently doing a quantitative test with them…gamifying promos for some of their fall shows.
I decided to take our research over the last 3 years and apply it to small businesses & people, and build an automated, customizing gaming platform called Customize-A-Game. I want to take games – make them 30-seconds – give people the opportunity to upload their own images & text, and allow them to personalize a game in 90 seconds or less for under $10 -- as well as add a coupon or an announcement – and let them push their personalized games out through their social media channels.
While I have lots of ideas how people, brands & small businesses can use personalized games, I’m most excited about using games as another form of messaging. I’m also very interested in creating something like a cross between Nascar & Formula 1 where hardcore gamers can select one of our games, add performance software & virtual goodies, and compete globally. With my relationships with brands, I hope to be able to offer some kind/form of sponsorships to the top players.
I was going to self-fund Customize-A-Game, but quickly realized that I had to first build/find a community. I also learned that the government is changing their rules on crowdfunding (Section 3), and I wanted to understand the dynamics of crowdfunding. I believe the future of funding creative projects & small business initiatives will come from crowdfunding.
Next week, we launch our Kickstarter campaign. Please join me for the adventure. If you have any questions, let me know, and I will do my best to answer them.