Question

You are the marketing manager for a company that creates video games. A big competitor has just released an action game that appeals to kids who own your best-selling game. Your competitor’s release is a better game because it takes advantage of features available in a hot new video game box. Your firm’s updated release won’t be available for at least 4 months. One of your game developers suggests that you pre-announce your game will be ready in 2 months which is about as long as gamers are likely to wait.

Should you announce that your new version is coming or just wait until you know more?

If a reporter for a popular gaming magazine calls and asks for a statement about when your firm’s release will be on the market, should you say two months, four months, or “we don’t know yet”?

If your product is pre-announced but then not ready by that date, what should your firm communicate to customers? Explain your thinking.

Answer 1

Yes, we should announce that our game would be ready in 2 months to the gamers because there are high possibility of customers switching to our competitors in the present scenario. We should also consider the fact that every new version or new game needs atleast a period of 4 months to develop and reach market. Thus, our efforts to pull back our customers from the competitors through new release would be delayed by almost four month. This period is quiet a long time and hence, we would be expected to make greater efforts in marketing to negate the effects of the delay. With such a vulnerable loyalty of the customer, we should avoid letting them go to our competitors. On the other hand, we should devise our marketing communications about the new release in such a way that there is an ambiguity about whether a full fledged version of the game is going to be released in 2 months or a demo version. So if we evaluate the market after 2 months and perceive that customers are not ready to wait for further delay, we should proceed with a release of Demo version and thus, enhance the anticipation about the full fledge game. But if we realize that customers are ready to wait for another 2 months, it would be better to communicate them about the delay in release of game.

Yes, we should also communicate to the magazine reporter about having a new release in 2 months. This is very important because we have to maintain a uniformity in all our communications. Any ambiguity in different communications made by us shall create a negative image about our company and its product and thus adversely effecting the future scope.

Yes, it is absolutely required to have some communication with customer after the end of the period of 2 months. We should communicate the further delay in such a manner that the delay was intentionally made in order to enhance upon the features of the game. We might also be required to initiate activities like introduction of demo version, special privilege for early booking,etc and thus try to engage the customers in various product activities. This activities are absolutely necessary as we are required to divert the attention of the customers from their concerns about the delay.

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