I like thinking of analogies and parallels between brands, marketing, game design, and developing successful strategies.
Most tabletop board games are played as a group and mix different styles and mechanics of player interaction, meaningful strategic choices, random elements, and conditions for victory.
When I begin working on a new project, the first step is researching a brand to understand the market situation.
Thtt brand and its closest competitors tend to be a set of 3-5, which is the same number of players in most board games.
Might it be interesting to imagine these 3-5 brand competitors playing a board game, which one might it be, and what stage of the game would they be in?
Perhaps a strange idea, but hey, I find original insights come from unusual places.
I recently worked on a tender for an airline with an agency. The brand is in an unusual market position. It reminded me of Root, a popular strategy board game designed by Cole Wehrle and published by Leder Games.
Thinking of airlines we could imagine two competing in a similar fashion, such as two national carriers with similar market positions, maybe like Emirates and Qatar Airways; or Ryanair and Easyjet in the low-cost category. Those are probably not exactly in a chess situation but perhaps a similar two player game.
In Root, there are four completely different factions, and all play with their own rules and strategies, it’s an asymmetric wargame.
It means that when you’re in the middle of the game, it’s generally meaningless to try and figure out what the opponents are doing in order to react to it. Their behaviour and path to success is always going to be different from yours.
This is something that happens in marketing too. A brand looks at main competitors and might be tempted to compare and/or copy whatever seems successful.
In Root, each faction has their own idiosyncrasies. You’re more likely to be successful by understanding your own faction’s style, rules, and victory conditions without worrying about opponents too much.
For that airline I was working on, the situation seemed asymmetric.
The main challenges and opportunities were not so obvious.
For those who know, playing Root I think that airline might have been been The Woodland Alliance, or the Vagabond. Sort of the rebel underdog, or the strange outlier, if you will. Perhaps I’d have had other ideas to approach the project had I thought of that then.
I’ll think of a comparable board game situation for a project soon report back when I have a chance.
Where do you draw inspiration from to gain perspective about your market situation?
Root (board game) https://ledergames.com/products/root-a-game-of-woodland-might-and-right
