Imagine: Success

Q: The Imagine range has sold a lot of units in the past couple of years - but where did idea for the range come from?

Mark Slaughter: I think the first thing to say is that the Imagine range was born out of a desire from the Ubisoft business to look at a broader portfolio of games, and a trend area that we found from Nintendo's Wii and DS as a booming market in terms of that demographic - so not only the kids' side of things, but also the adult population as well.

I think Ubisoft felt that was an area to explore more, hence an investment into games that traditionally you wouldn't look at as a target. So the company did the due diligence in terms of research to find out if the market was there, and what sort of games - and areas of games - that demographic was interested in.

The Imagine range was the result of that desire, and research, to find out exactly what was going on there. Imagine came out in 2007 with four titles initially - including Cooking, Babies and Fashion Model - and from the get-go they started selling significant amounts of units.

That was something that was rather unexpected, because obviously it was new territory, and when you speak to the sales guys the initial response from retail was, not resistant exactly, but a bit wary of these types of games - because they were different. They weren't sure what these pink, female-orientated games were.

I think that showed that Ubisoft and Nintendo were very on-trend - the job the sales guys did, and the marketing in order to get that point, was fantastic, and sales then took off. Babies saw extremely strong sales, on average selling 6000 units per week, pretty much from the start - and that was with limited investment at that time.

From a marketing point of view, initially it was seeing how they worked - as soon as it was realised that the products were cutting through and responding to sales then a big investment came in, and more development grew from there.

So Imagine was about being strong in the Wii and DS, and in this market area - and also the Petz franchise came out of it, as well as the exploration of other franchises, such as My Coach and the adult side of things.

And Ubisoft's desire to be there first on Wii and DS is what really led to us being number one on DS... not versus first-party, although I think we outsold Nintendo for one week last year. That changes though, and it's given us a lot of learning moving forward about how we market to those demographics as well.

Q: The installed base for the DS was pretty healthy in 2007, but the console's continued to sell strongly - how much do you think the Imagine range has helped to shift hardware units?

Mark Slaughter: It's an evolution of a brand - it started with a seed really, with the ideas for these types of games for a certain demographic, and then the brand grew with that expansion. There was a realisation that girls are really interested in playing at that age group.

I think the reaction to some of the titles initially was that some of them could be quite controversial, that maybe they don't understand - but actually girls are really interested in these types of titles.

As the brand has grown up a little bit more you can see the exploration into different careers and things that girls are driven about being. The demographic has evolved with games aimed at six year-olds, and even younger, to a 12 year-old where DS-wise you almost stop playing as a girl, and play other games that aren't thought of as 'girly' games.

There's another range that we're bringing out called Girls Life which addresses the older end of that market, and allows us as a brand to see exactly where Imagine sits - and it's primarily that 6-10 year old girl - and her aspirations and dreams and all that she's interested in, she can play at being through games.

And that's the general thing you'd do with a book, or with toys - it just allows a creative output. Games can engage that imagination, and take you to a different level in terms of your interaction with something.

That's what's really struck a chord with that demographic - these are the things kids are interested in, they want to be a teacher, or a fashion designer, they really engage with that area. You can see the successes within that in terms of unit sales, or the marketing that we do.

Q: Fast-forward two years, and unit sales for the Imagine range have certainly been strong...

Mark Slaughter: Calendar last year, in 2008, we sold 1 million units.

Q: Which isn't bad for a single-gender 4-year demographic range... particularly when that's girls from 6-10 in an unproven market?

Mark Slaughter: It's a good performance, but it's a big installed base - the total we're going after is about 9 or 10 million now, and proportionally in favour of that demographic.

Q: And how does that split out across Europe - are the games more popular in some territories than others?

Mark Slaughter: We have the EMEA and US territories as the two Ubisoft pillars - the US does phenomenally well, and we saw from the E3 press conference the focus it has there. France and the UK sit very closely together - the UK performs better in some titles, France in others, but those two countries plus Germany are the key territories.

Spain has issues with piracy, but the range does perform well there, while Australia does very well within the context of its own market. Italy's also pretty good.

The brand also exists under different names - in the UK and US it's Imagine, in France it's Lea - the name of a person, Lea Passion - which is a similar brand identity.

Q: How important is it to get the local cultural flavour right?

Mark Slaughter: It's definitely important - sometimes you'll find titles that will perform better in some countries than others, and with advertising, while we follow a general EMEA approach... in the UK the kids grow up a little bit faster, they're a bit more media-aware in terms of celebrity than in France or Italy - where celebrity isn't quite so important at a younger age.

Hence the involvement of Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby [in the UK marketing] last year, and also this year. We see nuances in the marketing, and in making the products appeal - whereas generically, the games themselves are more likely to appeal to all kids across a territory because a teacher is a teacher, and fashion is what it is.

Q: What are the star performers in the range at the moment?

Mark Slaughter: Teacher, Babies, Dream Weddings, Fashion Model, and Doctor's been strong since launch as well. It's really the more unique titles that seem to stand out, because obviously now the DS market is a lot more saturated - so the most successful ones are those for which similar games don't exist.

Q: That's a good point - at the end of last year there was so much DS product being released that the market was flooded. How much do you think the Imagine range has been copied?

Mark Slaughter: Yes - that's definitely happened. Last year there was a lot of competitive activity for Imagine. Some of it was released, some of it wasn't. I think what happened is that actually there is a barrier to entry: one, you need to have publisher weight to get them on the shelves, arrange them together; and two, to get distribution you need to focus a lot of investment behind them to convince retail they're being supported.

All of these elements added together actually creates a lot of difficulty for publishers to actually get involved. It's still difficult for us to do - we still have to compete for space with some of the core titles from our fold here, and other publishers. You've really got to convince retail with the money you're spending.

What happened with Imagine last year is that we had the big endorsement from Fearne and Holly, the money we were spending media-wise, the engagement, the way we were arranging point of sale, the whole 360-degree plan which helped define Imagine as a well-supported brand.

We were going to drive awareness - we had X-Factor spots, we had the sort of things that cost a lot of money. So if you're coming into it and you've got to spend more than GBP 1 million on advertising and marketing, you're going to look at the return on investment... the risk is still there.

Q: Is it that level of spend that impresses retailers, is it the big publisher name, or is it down to relationships?

Mark Slaughter: I think it's lots of different elements. I think if you've got a core concept of a game that's unique, excellent, you're marketing it... look at something like Pepper Pig previously - we've got that license now, but they came to market with a relatively small spend.

So I think licensing products and things like that do very well if you've got a strong concept, a strong idea that's going to work and appeal, with research that backs it up. There's always room for that area, it's just that if you're looking at ranges, and especially with the Imagine target range, the barriers to entry are there.

But that doesn't mean it's prohibitive.