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Imagine: Marketing

Mark Slaughter and Rachel Grant explain how Ubisoft brings its girl-game brand to the masses

GamesIndustry.biz So how do you pull that diversity together in the marketing?
Rachel Grant

We obviously market Imagine as a range, and as part of our strategy this year we've got a big competition taking place. We're getting girls to enter online and tell us what their dream is, and then other girls can rate those dreams. It's not a voting mechanism as such, but more like the "Like It" system on Facebook.

They'll be encouraged to video themselves, write in or send a photo, and there'll be an online gallery where all the different dreams are displayed. It'll be promoted throughout the campaign.

We've also got TV ads for the flagship titles running from September to December - and on the back of those there are ten-second tags telling girls about the competition and inviting them to join up.

The whole idea is that the winner will get their whole dream day lived out, and this will be recorded and made into a 3-minute video which will be in an ad break on prime time TV. It goes along with the whole fame idea, like Britain's Got Talent, X-Factor and so on.

We kicked off the TV campaign with X-Factor on September 12, and we're announcing the winner on December 12, which is when the video will be shown.

Mark Slaughter

It ties back to the brand positioning, which in the UK is "Live Your Dreams" - so we have the products that satisfy that, and we wanted to have the marketing tie back into that as well.

Rachel Grant

It's always coming back to the brand, and obviously we've identified these new titles that are coming out as careers that girls are interested in and want to be. So it's inspiring them in that way, but also finding out what their dreams are.

GamesIndustry.biz Earlier this year we saw the release of the Nintendo DSi - how interesting is the download side of things for the Imagine range?
Rachel Grant

It's a new area at the moment, and not many people are doing DSi-specific titles, but a few of the Imagine titles are including elements for it. I think Journalist has some DSi features, and particularly with our Girls Life range for the older demographic, Makeover allows you to take a photo of yourself with the DSi camera. Your face then goes into the game, and you can do the make-up, fix the hair and so on.

We're really interested in how it can feature, and we're using it at the moment in elements.

GamesIndustry.biz How do you see Imagine developing in that area in the next 12 months - will it be one of the key spokes for the DSi platform?
Mark Slaughter

It's an interesting question for us, because we treat Imagine as a brand and we want to look at it in different areas, and the way it spreads out on different platforms.

There's also the Imagine MMO, which was announced at E3, which is the online world for Imagine - capturing that whole element where girls can interact with each other in a safe environment and live out their Imagine-type dreams there. Again, that's a very interesting area to explore for the brand.

Games as well - the DS has a cycle as the platform evolves, so there's what exists on this platform and then what happens next with Nintendo. That we'll explore, but Imagine is definitely one of the flagship brands in the Ubisoft portfolio - where we put that, and grow it, is still being explored. It's still only a young brand.

Mark Slaughter is head of Ubisoft's Games For Everyone label in the UK, and Rachel Grant is brand manager for kids' games. Interview by Phil Elliott.

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