EA Games’ marketing boss Laura Miele doesn’t see Medal of Honor and Battlefield as individual brands
Work of Arts
The EA Games label is working on some blockbuster sequels – namely Medal of Honor, Dead Space, Need for Speed and Crysis. And the firm has just launched its paid-for online service, Battlefield Premium. In the third of four EA interviews, Christopher Dring speaks to EA Games’ marketing boss Laura Miele
How was E3 for EA Games? We did something interesting this year in that we waited until E3 to announce Dead Space 3, Need for Speedand Battlefield 3 Premium. Usually, we’ll announce in the spring but we wanted to have a big impact, so we held on. What we’ve evaluated in our analytics is that E3 is one of the biggest beats in a campaign. Even though it’s a trade show, consumers galvanise around the announcements.
Medal of Honor is back this year. The last game didn't achieve the critical reaction EA has been known for recently. Is it vital you remedy that this year? Medal of Honoris definitely going to benefit from Battlefieldand the Frostbite engine and frankly just the leadership of Patrick Soderland, who
18 July 20th 2012
is now running our label and he created DICE, so his influence over Medal of Honoris significant. I’m bullish not only about the quality of Medal of Honor, I also feel good about our position. We’re in a different position than we were with Battlefieldlast year as we’re the only authentic modern military game coming out. You’ve got Halo, which is sci-fi, and Call of Dutyis doing something a little different, so I feel very pure about our messaging and I know than when we’ve gone out with clear consumer positioning, we are always rewarded for that.
Is the aim to get Medal of Honor up to the quality and sales level that Battlefield has achieved? I don’t look at them as individual brands. EA set its sights on gaining
It’s more personal online than it is talking to a flustered sales clerk in a store.
“ Laura Miele, EA Games
share of the shooter category a while ago. With Battlefield, we have large scale battles, vehicles and massive multiplayer. Medal of Honor is that authentic soldier story and in February we’re coming out with Crysis, a sci-fi shooter. I look at it as a whole shooter strategy against the marketplace in order for us to grow our competitive share quicker. One of my responsibilities about
a 18 months ago was to build our play-for-free marketing organisation. It was a pretty wild assignment. There was a bit of chaos but through that chaos came a tremendous amount of learning for the hi-def business. We have built this listening engine which means we can not only keep our ear close to the ground, but we know how to