Xbox One’s Data Treasure Trove Could Reshape Marketing
Forty-nine days from an Xbox One rollout that could make or break one of Microsoft’s most successful brands, the key marketing executive behind the launch outlined how it also could reshape marketing in a speech to the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing Conference in Phoenix Oct. 5.
Yusuf Mehdi, corporate VP-marketing and strategy for Microsoft, outlined how he expects the new system, which succeeds the eight-year-old Xbox 360 in a neck-and-neck race with Sony’s Playstation 4 launch, could affect marketing. Those possibilities include ramping up consumer expectations for production values in advertising thanks to advances in Xbox imaging technology, furthering the “gamification” movement in advertising, and consolidating more attention now diffused among multiple devices for gaming, TV and web browsing onto the big screen. For example, Xbox One will make it easier to port real-time fantasy-football data to the TV screen as people watch NFL games.
But perhaps the biggest potential impact is one Mr. Mehdi only hinted at — the possibility of making data from Xbox available for market research.
