'Laat met je merk spelen' bijna uitverkocht!

Just to be disruptive a Dutch subject title today. It says: 'A Brand New Playground' almost sold out!

Of course I am referring to the Dutch version of my book. The first edition almost sold 1.500 copies so far in 15 months time. According to my publisher Kluwer this is good result for a book in such a niche-market that was written for Marketing Managers of which there are maybe 10.000 in The Netherlands. So I already sold my book to 10% of the market potential, which is excellent penetration! There are about 300 copies left, so if you want to get a hold of your copy of the 'eerste druk' (first release), order it here: www.bol.com or here www.managementboek.nl It - generally - is rated with 4 out of 5 stars - so don't take my word for it. If you send me a picture of yourself reading the book I will even hand sign it for you (Dutch residents only ;-)!

This is a Dutch review of the book in 2010 by Management Boek.nl
This is a Dutch review of the book in 2010 by Max Kohnstam:

The English version is still available for free through www.brandnewplayground.com

On Vacation Until 22-9-11

Hi guys & girls,

I will not be posting any stuff the following three weeks on my weblog.

However - feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I will post the news I read on the internet about games, gamification, gamevertising and social gaming.

I am enjoying a long trip to Bali, the Gili islands and Lombok, because I always wanted to go there and I just LOVE Indonesian food...

Should you ever visit The Netherlands, please visit restaurant Djakarta in Utrecht. The place itself doesn't look al that good, but the food is fabulous!

Okay, enough - non gaming talk - check the map if you like to see where I will be going and be sure to be back from 22-9-11...


Bart

Laat met je merk spelen te koop in Kluwer Shop! [Dutch only sorry]

Vandaag een mooi artikel over Gamification in het Parool. Daarom even een doorverwijzing naar de verkooppunten waar mijn boek verkrijgbaar is.

Mijn boek 'Laat met je merk spelen' is te koop via Bol.com, Managementboek.nl en de Kluwer Webshop. Uiteraard ligt het ook bij Selexyz en de betere boekhandels.

De gratis samenvatting kun je HIER downloaden (rechtsboven op 'demo' klikken).

SORRY! - Less posts than usual...

Just wanted to apologize for a second for not posting so many new articles lately.

We are happy to say that we're awfully busy with some great projects for some of our clients.

I am still busy posting interesting news, research and opinions on Twitter, so please feel free to follow my tweets @BartHufen

Topics I tweet about are #gamification #gamevertising #brandnewplayground (my upcoming book)  #gameresearch and more...

Hopefully we will have more time towards beginning of may - so stay tuned!

FREE SUMMARY OF MY BOOK AVAILABLE!

Finally after three months of updating my book it is currently being translated into English! Hooray!

The title will be: A Brand New Playground - Building Brands in the Digital Era

As I wanted to share the contents in an early stage please feel free to download and share the free summary (demo). You can find it HERE.

The main topic of the book is how games can be used to achieve marketing objectives in the digital era.

The first chapter basically describes the different platforms, genres and provides a historical overview of games throughout the past.
The second chapter describes the consumers that play games. Ten years ago it was merely kids and teenagers playing games, but the past five years we have seen that mothers and elderly are playing online games more and more.
The third chapter reveals a lot of cases that support objectives within the marketingmix, on product-, price-, place, personnel and promotional matters.
The fourth and final chapter reveals how games can be put to use within the field of Brand Management and Marketing on a theoretical level. I have developed three models that help agencies, organizations and brands to develop concepts that build bridges between them and the target audience.

Amongst them are the Branding Checklist, The Brand Play model and the CoCha-model (gotcha!).


Have fun reading it, share the pdf with friends and collegues and tweet your feedback to:

@BartHufen or #BrandNewPlayground



Please feel free to join my community on Linkedin called BrandNewGame


Bart

Presenting during Trendsfactory March 24th 2011 - De Parade 's-Hertogenbosch

I am really honored to speak during Trendsfactory 2011 next to people like Stephen Fellinger (Spin Awards), Martijn Aslander (Lifehacking) and the crazy Cor Molenaar (Shopping 3.0) and many others.

I recommend all Dutch internet marketeers to subscribe to this event NOW as we will present the future of internet, social media and using games as a marketing tool. We will present the future of your marketingmix related to product, price, place (innovative distribution), people (training) and promotion (marketingcommunication).

To read more information about the event or to subscribe, check this link:

http://www.trendsfactory.nl/

Wishing not ALL of your dreams come true in 2011!

Since life can be largely compared to games or the other way around I hope that you will not achieve all your goals. Purpose is the most important thing in life. It is what keeps you going and keeps you developing yourself into a better (or worse) person. It helps you to continuously aim higher and get closer to achieving whatever you wish to achieve.

Therefore I hope not all your dreams come true in 2011, because you always need something to wish for. But keep setting goals and keep on dreaming, because hope and purpose is what helps you to reach the next level!

Thank you very much for following me in 2010 and I hope to keep on inspiring you in 2011 with new cases and projects I have been involved in. My next goal is to have my book translated into English and to undertake some great projects with some really nice clients.

Furthermore I am thinking about an iPad application containing all the information you need on gaming and branding. Let me know if you think that's a good idea!

For now - be nice to each other and remain healthy!

Laat met je merk spelen is a X-Mas recommendation!

My book has been recommended as 'an excellent read between X-Mas and New Years eve'.

All readers that email me a summary of their opinion of the book will get a free presentation or an hour of hack & slash adventure with me!

Order the book below:

www.Kluwer.nl  

My book hits the TOP 10 Management books by Kluwer

I am happy to announce that my book has been chosen by Kluwer to be part of the TOP 10 Management Books in 2010.

Apart from that I can announce that the free English summary is almost finished and will be available for download from the 1st of January 2011. (1-1-11 ;-)

This is the link to the English part of the website for my book (A Brand New Playground).

The book will unveil the latest insights in digital consumer behaviour, provides an overview of the games industry in the past 30 years, provides about 30 case studies categorized in product-, price-, place-(innovative distribution and micro-transactions), personnel and promotion-related objectives and presents three models how games can be used in the field of brand management and marketing.

 I hope you will enjoy it!

Presenting at SRM tonight! I appear to be a GURU?!

Heroes never die!

After writing my book 'Laat met je merk spelen' - soon to be published in English (end of 2010, called A Brand New Playground), I have started to become more philosophical and keep thinking why games are so special to me and to hundreds of millions of people around the globe...
Today I had an insight why games are so cool and the reason is that in games 'heroes never die'... comparable to most books, comics and films. We love heroic creatures and wished they live forever, protecting the world from harm.
It is only in real life that our life is so precious (we have only one). Still - our best friends, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters die even though they've done nothing wrong. In epic films like Lord of the Rings, some heroes die (Boromir), but the real heroes (Frodo and his friends, Aragorn and Gandalf) fortunately don't. I wonder how we would feel if they would all die and we would have to start to get to know new 'heroes' in part 2 and part 3 of the book / film...
How would you feel if you buy a RPG or action game and after playing it for ten minutes, your hero dies and the game is truly 'game-over'? Would you be angry? Or would you accept it and buy the game again (or choose a new / different hero)? I guess you would be really disappointed and angry. How much is a virtual life worth? Wouldn't you be much more cautious playing Call of Duty if you would have to pay a dollar for each life you spoil? It would make the gameplay much more interesting I guess, because the 'stakes are higher'. Maybe it would even be interesting if you gain 50 cents for each kill you make, compensating the costs you make for each life you spoil... ? And the more kills you get, the harder it would be for people to kill you (a build-in experience/skill-model, like in Fallout 3 for instance).
It would be interesting to see if a game-developer would take the chances of developing a game with these mechanics in it!

Presenting during Marketing RSLT Summer School [Dutch only - sorry]

I am presenting my vision on the new media landscape during the Marketing RSLT Summer school* and will reveal some new cases how you can use games as a marketing tool.

Feel free to subscribe before upcoming August 15th here - all my relations will get their second workshop for FREE!

Be sure to fill in 'BrandNewGame / Bart Hufen' in the 'opmerkingen' field at the bottom of the subscription form.

* Bloemendaal 25th of August 2010 - The Netherlands.

Book available!

My book 'Laat met je merk spelen' is currently available through managementboek.nl and www.bol.com

I have just started working on the international (English) version and I am looking for cool cases that I can use in the book.

Please help me and send your links to barthufen@brandnewgame.nl using the subject header 'Case for Book'.

Thanks so much for your support the past year and please feel free to visit www.laatmetjemerkspelen.nl for a free [Dutch] abstract from my book.

Pac-man inventor mr. Iwatani and me

Just had a great inspiring meeting with the inventor of Pac-Man!
More when I get back to write my editorial

Meet & Greet with Joseph Pine

I am very honored to have the opportunity to speak 1 on 1 with Joseph Pine on the 10th of June in the Netherlands.

Should you have any questions to ask him - send me an email!

barthufen@brandnewgame.nl

He is working on a very inspiring book, but unfortunately it's not up to me to reveal anything about that! - Haha.

New Book: A Brand New Playground - Searching for CASES!

Hi All!

I just finished the Dutch version of my book 'Laat met je merk spelen' (A Brand New Playground) and would like to start with the international (English) version soon.
For this issue, I am looking for international cases of how games are being used as a marketing tool to achieve goals that are related to Product, Price, Personnel (staff), Place (virtual product distribution through games) or Promotion.

Please help me find them!

Think of global brands like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Diesel, BMW, etc.

Much appreciated if you can send me links or full cases!

Send an email to barthufen@brandnewgame.nl (subject: Cases for Brand New Playground)

THANKS THANKS THANKS!

Let Them Play With Your Brand

This is the presentation I recently held at the Marketing Information Event in Rotterdam and the day after at the Cc_Live Interaction event in Den Bosch. Go Check it out!

Laat met je merk spelen

View more presentations from Crossmarks.

Bart Hufen presented at the Marketing Information Event in Rotterdam

Just got back from two days of Marketing Information at the event in Rotterdam.
My presentation was about gaming as a marketing tool - of course, but the session after mine was about product development through consumer involvement. Something I believe in and will have elaborate cases in my book (check Lego Factory on the search engine below). It was amazing to hear that from the six groups that took part in the workshop, four of them came back predicting an imaginative concept for Bol.com would be something with gaming.... I am not making this up!

My presentation was about the future of branding, which comes basically down to:

1. Be remarkable to be noticed
2. Continuously evolve your brands and products
3. Invest in your relationship with consumers

Apart from that I described the gaming industry and the 'gamer' - sharing three slides from Today's Gamer research by TNS-NIPO.

In the end I showed 5 cases, which are also available at BrandNewGame/cases

If you wish to check out my presentation go to the 'news' section from next week.

Shaping Your Brand Future 2010 - BrandNewGame Brand Management

Great days in Cannes!

Just some pictures of our presence during the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

BrandNewGame was there with about 35 other Dutch Gaming Industry Delegates.

We spend 3 terrific days on the 'Stad Amsterdam' and witnessed some interesting presentations. Hopefully next year will be as inspiring and enlightning as this year!