Silent Treatment
Want big buzz? Keep your mouth shut.
A little mystery goes a long way. Just ask the marketers behind
Interactive Imagination, a multimedia entertainment company that
unleashed the fantasy world of Magi-Nation one piece at a time.
Between Pokémon-loving kiddies and the older set who enjoy
the complex Magic the Gathering, Interactive Imagination had carved
a niche in the collectible card game industry. Mindful that their
target market would reject attempts at mass marketing, Interactive
Imagination chose instead to use a mysterious comic book flier to
raise curiosity. Featuring snazzy artwork and the name
"Magi-Nation," a comic scene revealed the unfamiliar
world of the game and promoted its fall arrival. One million fliers
were displayed at hobby stores and published in industry magazines
before the product launch, igniting a buzz campaign.
When the Magi-Nation game finally materialized in October 2000,
it sold out its initial print run by the end of the holidays, and
the Seattle firm projects $5 million in sales for 2001. "We
could start small," says co-founder and creative director
Phillip Tavel, 30, (whose partners are Don Morris, 50; Sterling
Griffin, 40; Rich Silveira, 46; and Greg Richardson von Oy, 32),
"because we had faith players would like it enough to show it
to others. To a great extent, that's what has
happened."
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