How Conor McGregor used customer research to win mobile gaming — Justin Chen // PickFu

The mobile gaming space is intense. One of the biggest issues with many games is that they fail on launch. They think it will be great, but they don't get the downloads. Maybe the marketing doesn't hit, or maybe the app icons aren't attractive enough. There’s only one way to find out: consumer research. Listen to Justin Chen, Co-founder of PickFu, as he discusses how Conor McGregor used customer research to win mobile gaming.

About the speaker

Justin Chen

PickFu

Justin Chen is Co-founder at PickFu

Part 1 How Conor McGregor used customer research to win mobile gaming — Justin Chen // PickFu
Part 2Thrasio’s consumer research-led product designs — Justin Chen // PickFu

Show Notes

02:22

How Conor McGregor was able to leverage his brand and customer research to enter the mobile gaming space

Conor partnered with a gaming company that wanted to make that the creatives were going to resonate so they used a self-service consumer research tool to optimize them before launch.
03:42

What Conor McGregor ads would resonate in the mobile space to get people to download the games?

He brought a lot of brand recognition to the mobile game. But the game needed to look appealing.
04:32

Why should a brand use consumer research as opposed to going to the market and optimizing based on market response?

It comes down to minimizing the risk at launch.
05:56

Why live testing is not effective and efficient

You wouldn't want to do live testing of all kinds of things because you're going to confuse your actual consumers.
07:36

What are brand creatives missing in terms of ad creative rollout?

Being more clear is generally what people are missing. People tend to be too creative even when they dont have to.
08:58

Do celebrities matter in product lunch?

It gets attention, especially in mobile gaming which is such a crowded space. The celebrity helps to drive the initial downloads then its up to the game to perform well.
09:37

What DTC brands can learn from the mobile gaming space

Be data-driven and dont think too narrowly about your audience
10:59

The future of mobile gaming

Everyone is a gamer and gaming will continue to grow.

Quotes

"One of the biggest issues with many games is that they fail on launch. They think it will be great, but they don't get the downloads. Maybe the marketing doesn't hit, or maybe the app icons aren't attractive enough." - Justin Chen
“What a lot of mobile game companies do is soft launch in a different country because they want to make a strong US splash.” - Justin Chen
“The way you can look at our platform is it's kind of like a private sandbox for testing creatives. And especially if you want to test out different directions." - Justin Chen
"You wouldn't want to do live testing of all kinds of things because you're going to confuse your actual consumers, and you're obviously going to spend more and lose out because one of those is going to be losing. What we recommend people do is pre-test these creatives on a platform like PickFu. Not only are you going to get quantitative information about what people like, but all of our respondents have to give written explanations why." - Justin Chen
"What is interesting is that the feedback we hear from our customers is that the option that they thought was going to win never wins." - Justin Chen
“Being more clear is generally what people are missing. I think people tend to be too creative, which I don't want to be. But a lot of times, things just look too creative and are just creative for the sake of being creative. What consumers are looking for, is they're trying to understand what you're trying to say or what you're trying to sell." - Justin Chen
It's attention that people are trying to chase, and either you're watching something or you're playing something. It's whatever engages you. So, 100% of the time, gaming is going to continue to grow. There's a lot of crossovers with B2C e-commerce brands, retail brands, and gaming as well. And I think you're going to see a lot more of that." - Justin Chen
"These are the things that define people now, right? It's their activities, and not so much what they're born with, or their current state of age, or whatever it is." - Justin Chen