Xbox 360 Digest Exclusive Interview: FiftyOne Marketing

We had a chance to ‘sit down’ and ask one of the newest marketing companies in the gaming industry some questions. Established earlier this summer, FiftyOne Marketing’s goal is to bridge the gap between the game companies and the gaming community.

FiftyOne Marketing has turned the way we’re used to experiencing marketing upside down in a very short time.  What makes this fresh, new company tick and what’s with this "list"?  You’ve tweeted with them and read about them, but now it’s time to know them!

What does FiftyOne Marketing do?
We work on marketing for games and other entertainment.  We come up with the type of marketing campaigns and strategies that we believe gamers would prefer seeing and buying into.
Most importantly though is that we establish a community with the very same audience we’re marketing to.  That’s something unique to what we do.  We don’t sit behind anonymous emails just directing traffic.  We engage, we communicate and we embrace those who would otherwise be just numbers to everyone else.

Why was your team formed?
Simple.  We’re all gamers who felt like we each had something more to give to each other as gamers.  That something more was creating the type of marketing that really speaks to what being a gamer is all about.  We wanted to create the type of marketing that gamers could rally behind and trust. We wanted to offer to publishers, developers and other companies a way to reach this audience in a capacity that hasn’t been done before.
To be honest, there aren’t many (if any) companies out there that are as fused within the gaming community as we are.  We were born within this culture and there is no collection of people better suited to represent and market to this audience more than FiftyOne Marketing.

What is your ultimate goal?
We want people to understand that marketing isn’t about robots and for the companies that choose FiftyOne Marketing, to understand that there is a better way to reach the audience they target. Our goal is to establish a new union between marketing and the consumer.
Gamers aren’t just numbers and we want to show that you can engage the consumer and still produce a kick ass marketing campaign…even ten times as kick ass.

What is "the list" and how might someone be included on it?
People are really excited about "the list".  It’s basically a list of everyone who supports us. There are no requirements outside of simply being excited and interested about what FiftyOne Marketing is doing.
I will say though that the list is made up of stages.  Those who were early on in support will likely get whatever goodies the list provides a lot sooner than most.  What those goodies or benefits are, I won’t say but it’s definitely a good thing to be on the list.  And it’s not something that is based on exclusion, so at some point everyone on the list will have benefited in every way; the exact same way.
You just have to keep a close eye on the chatter and the Twitter account because as the stages are opened, I’ll likely talk about it.

FiftyOne has gained popularity rather quickly. When you started the viral marketing campaign, were you thinking that it would take off like it has and become this successful?
We certainly hoped it would but in any planning you anticipate a certain return, but you never really know how it’ll be received until it is.  It blew my mind.  It blew the minds of everyone on the team when things turned out the way that they did.
It has been a great thing though and we try to impress upon everyone that we’re extremely excited with all the feedback.  We appreciate it very much and it motivates us to go harder, work longer and do more.

You guys treated your followers to a picture of a "FiftyOne" themed Xbox 360, but we’ve also seen the dice appear on some mobile phones, what was your motivation behind this movement and what were your thoughts with the community response?
Everything about FiftyOne Marketing starts with one question.  How can we keep our fans, our audience…the community as a whole interested and excited about what we’re doing?  For a fan of 51 to take it upon himself to create a theme for iPhone users, was mind-blowing and it shows that we’re answering that question.
The themed Xbox 360 was a way for everyone to see that at every level, you can be a part of what we’re doing here.  Wait until you see the 51 PS3 Slim!  We want everyone to feel like they own a piece of FiftyOne Marketing because in so many ways it’s the community who will be responsible for how far we go and if option a) is ultimately where we end up.

You have given out codes for Xbox content on your Twitter, mentioning they weren’t exclusive to the 360 scene. What might the Wii and PS3 users be able to win? What other content for the Xbox do you plan on giving away?
One of the cool things about FiftyOne Marketing is that we’ve each been involved in the gaming industry on some level before coming together.  I’ve been involved with several publishers and developers for a few years before branching out and establishing FiftyOne Marketing.
With that said, I’ve been fortunate enough to carry that over and give out some things for Xbox and soon for the Wii and PS3.  You’ll see things like codes, points, and games for those consoles much like you’ll see for the Xbox.
We try very hard to know who our fans are.  You’ll see random questions from the Twitter account of FiftyOne Marketing sometimes that are not random at all.  Those questions will be used internally to make sure we’re keeping people engaged with the proper swag.  We’re not blind to the fact that everyone loves swag so any chance we get, we try to share the love.

What does your website do?
The "What is 51" website has been going on for a bit and right now it’s at the publishers/developer stage.  They’re going through it right now getting a glimpse of their future.  When we get into the gamer stage of it, you guys will be able to see the same future that they saw.
Our main website is under development and should be coming very soon.  It’s naturally a hub to find out about all things 51.  It’ll blow your minds in the same manner that you’re used to from FiftyOne Marketing.  Because blowing minds is what we do.

What (if any) types of services do you plan on providing to journalists? What about developers?
That’s top secret information.  But I can say that our services aren’t robotic and they don’t do lies very well.  So if there are journalists or developers around who fancy the same generic mumbo jumbo, then I’m 100% certain that FiftyOne Marketing has nothing to offer them.
We’re all about providing something unique, something fresh and something gamers can rally behind.  We’re not robots and we don’t offer generic mumbo jumbo.

And here’s one from a Twitter user (@ikillbambis):
At PAX, FiftyOne was in full swag mode. When can we expect more swag or an outlet to buy it? After all word of mouth is the best form of advertising!
Some of the PAX swag has already been shown.  I included a little bit of it in 51 Pack #1 that was won a few days ago.  I’ll filter it out over the next week or so to make more Twitter bugs happy.

Special thanks to Daylon with FiftyOne Marketing for taking the time to answer some questions. If you have any questions for FiftyOne, simply add them below in the comments and we’ll try to get them answered for you. For more on FiftyOne Marketing, follow them on Twitter at Twitter.com/whatis51 or email them at what{AT}whatis51.com.

Christian Hughes contributed to this article.