How to use Social Media Marketing to Market your Product: The SPORE Way

I have seen the future and it is SPORE. Really.

What is SPORE you may ask? It's a new game under development by e-Game company EA (That's Electronic Arts). Think of it as SIMS only with creatures -- creatures you create.

Here's one that I've done called "Oscar" using the newly released SPORE Creature Creator:

Oscar is an Herbivore. He spits and likes to dance.

Big deal you might say. Well, actually it's quite addictive to build these creatures and see how to increase their attributes. But overall the new Creature Creator doesn't do much more than that. You build a creature. You check out its moves and then well...not much more to do.

Except for the fact that you can load your creature up to the Sporepedia (you can find all of mine under the username feline4you) and you can also "film" a move of your creature and post it on the YouTube SPORE site which is currently running a contest for best Spore Creature Dance Video (yep), and you can sign up for your Facebook Fan page and several applications and get some really cool gear.

All of this in lead up to the actual game launch in September 08.

So here's a game company that is creating a storm of buzz around a game that isn't out yet by doing the following:

1. Giving access to ONE aspect of the game as a free trial version or stand alone (The Creature Creator) for $10.
2. Create an online community where people can get news about the pre-production game, and load their creations.
3. Partner with YouTube to post videos about the game (pre-release trailers, how-tos, etc) while at the same time encouraging consumer generated content through a dance video competition -- the Creature Creator cand do video which you can easily upload to YouTube.
4. Get your fan-base excited through Facebook and MySpace through fan pages AND applications.
5. Offer traditional promotional gear for the faithful.
6. Offering pre-0rders and if you buy the Creature Creator, you can get $10 off the full game purchase.

See the mix of the traditional with the online viral? This is a GREAT example of doing it right. It's Integrated, Intentional and builds buzz and excitement.

Here's some recent press about SPORE:

1. Fortune: Spawning Spore's Creatures
2. The New Zealand Herald: Spore Looks to be an Epic Gaming Experience
3. Video Gamer.com: User Created Spore Creatures Top One Million

Of course the blogs are interesting as well. Debate about the fact that EA is using consumer generated content to populate the game world before it launches (personally I think it's cool, however, as a content creator it isn't like you get paid!), and how creative people get (yep, there is now SPORN!) (note that that link is explicit and not PG!) and everything in between.

It's called Buzz.

It's a marketers holy grail (second time I've used this statement in a few posts!)

And EA has it.

Here's one of my YouTube entries:

There's also a fan site called sporefan.com (of course) and they are even running an Adwords campaign!

So folks, what do you think you can learn from this marketing? EA is very intentionally giving up control (letting users create), taking the risks (responding to sporn) and managing the process through a mix of marketing tactics. Who is to say any brand couldn't do this?