TAKEOFF Insights Into the Entertainment Industry

This year has been tricky for everyone. And we mean everyone. The projects we’ve worked on this year, and the support we’ve received over the course of 2022, has helped our teams to go beyond the brief and deliver fresh, exciting works of art for our partners and their audiences. More than anything, this year has also reiterated how important creativity and imagination is to human resilience and the soul. We’re looking forward to 2023, and better times ahead for everyone. We make it happen! Here’s our best-in-show for 2022.

Gamification is a term used to define bringing gaming elements into non-gaming situations, such as lead generation or – as can be seen on The Game Academy – helping people into work or education. It can be used with your in-house training materials to improve employee engagement, for instance, and as The Game Academy shows, it can also be used by gaming studios to identify and recruit new talent. For gamification to have a serious effect, though – whether on attracting talent, retaining it, lead generation, education or other medium – it pays to work alongside a creative agency that has gaming at its heart.

Esports feels like it’s on the verge of breaking into the mainstream. Teams and players are fast-becoming the new icons for younger generations who can tune into a tournament from the comfort of their phones, and follow their lives with a click on the ‘Subscribe’ button. One of the best ways Esports teams can boost their profiles and build new audiences, too, is through branded roadshows that bring skilled players to new areas, and hosts competitions where the public can game one-on-one with their Esports heroes.

It’s arguably never been easier for studios to create a campaign and immediately reach out to target audiences due to the number of social media channels out there. The sheer variety of social media channels means that studios have to work much harder not just to grab an audience’s attention, but keep them interested. In our experience, the best approach to video games marketing is to cherry-pick the best of both mediums – target audiences where they spend their time most on social media and start online conversations that matter with video game influencers.

Brands and studios who like to exhibit often find that one of the toughest challenges they have is mixing the physical with the digital. By being a bit more experiential, they can reach out to audiences beyond the people on the show floor and potentially generate more leads through digital channels. Real success comes from intrinsic planning and consistent creative comms and working just as hard before and after your live event.

TAKEOFF’s limited editions, influencer kits and other custom gifts are always packed to the brim with amazing goodies that send shockwaves through communities and get them talking. What sets TAKEOFF’s service apart, though, is our attention to detail, level of quality, and knowing exactly what kinds of gifts will blow people away. The astonishing level of detail in our work is only achievable thanks to the knowledge and experience of a team of professional artisans who really care about what they produce.

Influencer marketing is one of the best ways for agencies and studios to speak directly to the audiences they want to reach. Good influencer marketing is a two-way street, and shouldn’t be something a brand or agency looks to ‘take advantage of’ to appeal to certain demographics. Working with an agency experienced in working with talented influencers the world over can help you to bridge that gap between your brand, popular creators and new audiences.

The global cosplay market is expected to reach $23 billion by 2030, according to figures released last year from Allied Market Research. That presents a fantastic opportunity for studios to work with influential cosplayers to promote a new IP and present the awesome characters you’ve created to new audiences in a fresh way. Working with the right cosplayer and having costumes created for them based on your IP will not only allow people to find out more about it, but it will introduce your new world and characters to their friends and followers, too.

TAKEOFF works extremely closely with clients and partners when they’re exhibiting at trade shows and events. Some agencies will just build a booth and deliver it to the client. We prefer a more personable approach; our team is with you all the way from creative planning to the activation stage and beyond. Approaches such as these are also strong ways to directly generate lead data in ethical, transparent ways first-hand at shows, thanks to adaptive booths and activations that fit your wider marketing strategy.

Over the last few years, a huge number of brands have taken real efforts to reduce their carbon footprints, while others have pledged to become carbon neutral as soon as they can. This is an area that TAKEOFF has been investing in for some time. Gone are environmentally-unfriendly gifts, In their place are premium reusable water bottles; tote bags made in ethical ways; dioramas that will stand the test of time, and many other awesome goodies.

The rise of the internet has made what used to be considered ‘traditional’ printing – i.e., physical printing – more niche over the past decade, which has also led to an inevitable rise in costs. The specialism of an agency like ours doesn’t just lie in knowing printing terminology or what grade of paper to use.It’s looking at the whole project, and helping clients to understand why they’re printing something and the format the campaign would look best on to convey the strongest message.

QR code usage is surging across the globe thanks to smartphone penetration and all-round better technology. The Elkoy Artist Collective is just one group proving that QR codes can be more than a boring old collection of black and white squares. Most importantly, the QR codes work and are entirely functional, proving that – with the right approach – the humble QR code can become anything you want it to be to blow prospects away.

Simplicity is probably the hardest thing to achieve in art and design. That includes work related to branding, rebranding, creating artworks and lithographs for limited editions, social media and OOH advertising. We make it happen at TAKEOFF, thanks to an extremely skilled team of talented visual artists that can convey powerful messages easily across a variety of off- and online channels.

It may be something that’s never crossed your mind before, but font licensing is something that’s extremely important to consider if you’re thinking of a rebrand or about to launch a new IP. An experienced creative agency won’t just work with you to create a font. They’ll take in all aspects of the brand’s history, previous design work and content, and future aspirations to create instantly recognisable fonts that tell your story and make your IPs stand out.

Our relationships with our manufacturing partners not only help to keep costs low for the client. It’s an incredibly streamlined process which creates premium gifts and high-quality items for each collector’s edition. This approach allows IP owners to get the most from their budget, increase their margins, give them an advertising boost and – most importantly – provide something incredibly rare and collectible that fans and audiences alike can enjoy.

Collector’s editions are extremely unique in that they can have a ripple effect on an audience. They stand less chance of being thrown if they’re fun and functional. The more premium your collectibles are, the happier your community will be, and word will spread both off- and online.

During the initial discovery phase, our designers and artists will work to understand the story behind the project and sketch concepts to produce images full of emotion that can be further developed. Whatever form the end product takes, be it a physical product or digital design, it always starts with a sketch at TAKEOFF.

TAKEOFF has access to a global network of the brightest influencers on the planet, and we thought we’d share some tips with you here on how to partner with the right people for your projects. Because influencer marketing isn’t like other forms of marketing. It’s a carefully-balanced medium; a two-way street in which your influencer would like to see growth and results, too.

A strong, sharp image that instantly shows why people need your product or service can be far more effective than other forms of content. (Bonus points, too, if it looks cool!). More and more of our partners are recognising the power of GIFs in their advertising. Not only in helping to grab attention, but for the shareable nature of the content, too.

We worked with Hollywood superstar JCVD on a ‘recruitment campaign’ for mobile game WARPATH, of which the Muscles from Brussels is a brand ambassador. These partnerships don’t happen by accident, though. They’re the result of an incredible amount of detailed research, careful planning and creative collaboration. Our greatest tip is this: working with an ambassador is a two-way relationship. They should benefit as much as you.

It can be hard for video game publishers and studios to imagine how to fill space at a trade event. TAKEOFF has created a guide for exhibiting video game studios to help them visualise what they can do with the space available to them at trade events. Our handy guide is designed to help exhibitors find a quick budget allowance for their allocated footprint, and get a breakdown of how that budget will be allocated.

The entirety of Cologne becomes a hive of gaming activity during Gamescom, and the signs are positive that it’ll be back to normal this year. Now is the time for gaming studios to plan ahead and think about how they’re going to attract new audiences to their booths and nurture them to become brand ambassadors.

If you’re already planning how to present yourself at an upcoming exhibition though, we think an experiential approach is crucial to attracting footfall and setting your brand apart. An experiential approach is immersive, interactive and extremely effective at attracting footfall and generating leads. Our teams work closely with brands and exhibitors to not only plan and create experiential sets for their show, but will also fully activate them, handling all logistics to make sure it’s perfectly built and ready to grab visitors’ attention when the doors open.

There are so many steps to take to creating the perfect limited edition. Added together – especially when in the midst of a pandemic – clients should be looking and planning their projects with TAKEOFF at least 12 months in advance.
Creating something so intricate like this in bulk is no easy feat, though.

Whether you need a trailer for your new game, an activation for an event, a custom console skin, a stunning limited edition or some other incredible form of creative media, we make it happen.
2021 has also been a time for reflection, allowing our teams to assess our production lines, services, suppliers and more to maximise productivity and deliver quality results in a timely manner.

If the sponsor’s values and goals align with the host, together they can create something extremely fun, interactive and – most importantly – memorable for attendees.
Finding that partner, though, can be extremely tricky, even for seasoned event organisers – let alone those who are new to hosting events. There’s also the Coronavirus equation to consider, too...

After being grounded for so long, people are desperate to get back to working with colleagues and mixing with potential new business partners as quickly as possible. Safety comes first at TAKEOFF, though. Covid is here to stay, so we still need to be aware of how we manage our activations to mitigate risk as much as possible.

Language is a key part of the design process. We therefore have our own special system in place when we’re designing packaging to make sure that everyone in our global studios can pick up a project and is always on the same page, no matter what territory it’s in.

There’s nothing more frustrating than finishing a project only to catch a simple misspelling when it rolls off the production line. If you can see it, then your target audience most certainly will, too. When creating packaging, therefore, it’s so important to check, check and check again to make sure everything is correct.

While a lot of client and audience focus will be on the exciting, fresh new look and visuals of the brand during the roll out phase, the true mark of a rebrand's success lies in supporting documents such as the brand guidelines and custom toolkit. As a point of reference internally, a strong set of brand guidelines are invaluable.

When it comes to design, nothing is underestimated as much as the work that goes into a professional rebranding campaign. The rebranding process has to be handled extremely carefully and can take months of delicate back-and-forth before it can see the light of day.

A successful marketing agency focuses on so much more than the creative side of a project. The success of every project we undertake is heavily tied to the feasibility stage. This takes place at the beginning of each project, where we consider and plan every logistical element possible.

The more you take your audience’s tastes and trends into account, though, the happier they’ll be with their limited edition. They’re literally created to cater for your audience.
It also allows you and our teams to be a bit more creative – to think outside the box, to leave more room in the box, and make it less crowded.

A powerful piece of key art is so important to advertising a video game, movie or other piece of media.
Strong key art is also effective at advertising products and services – think of key art as a single image that acts as a summary of everything you want to draw in an audience. So, what should you look for before signing off a piece of key art in the digital age?

Key art needs to be emotive. A graphic that stops people in their tracks and encourages people to click through to learn more is invaluable. It becomes more than a graphic; it acts as a call-to-action for the audience to learn more.

People remember creative image-led content. A polished logo identity animation gives real impact, and will stick in people’s minds, and tell the story of your brand in a fun, interesting way.

An agency may be able to create some stunning 3D models for you, but they won’t be very effective if they aren’t part of a wider picture. A trusted, respected creative agency with experience in 3D modelling and animation will work with you to flesh out your ideas and use leading 3D techniques to plan ahead and execute that content in creative ways.

A custom console is an unbeatable way to secure mainstream press coverage. They’re fantastic lead generators for competitions and giveaways. We see each custom console as a blank canvas; a chance for us to ignite our imaginations and unleash something unique on unsuspecting audiences hungry for new experiences when it comes to physical media.

Yes. If you’re selling a product or using somebody else’s images as part of your marketing, then knowing copyright basics for your region is one of the most important steps to take, early on. A lot of legal work has to go on behind the scenes to make sure that everybody in the chain, from ourselves to the actual licence owners, knows what can and cannot be done with those characters and their likeness, whether they appear on the game’s box or a social media ad.

Unboxing videos may have been around for a while, but they’re still incredibly popular, especially when it comes to limited editions and custom gear. It’s critical to underline how much work needs to go into your outreach and social strategies, though, to target the right influencers who have real connections with their social audiences.

When we work with companies on their branding, one of the first things we do is work to identify their unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is what sets your brand apart from the others, but amazingly, a lot of brands haven’t considered what makes them unique. It’s something we put into practice here at TAKEOFF. With offices across the world (and, soon, a canal barge boat in London!), we work incredibly hard to make sure our USP is consistent across all locations and through each social channel.

We wouldn’t recommend a strategy that we wouldn’t try ourselves. We like to experiment with our TAKEOFF social channels, and include moving elements in a lot of our posts. Do it right and inject a bit of creative licence into your social strategy and the potential for success is enormous.

B2B marketing can be one of the toughest things for sales teams to successfully pull off. We could carry on all day with statistics showing the effectiveness of video when it comes to B2B. The truth is, we like to practise what we preach, and use video as a key part of our own B2B outreach strategy.

There’s still power in print. Not everything has to be – or can be – digital. While a lot of businesses and agencies are investing in online advertising, print is still bringing impressive returns and can reach demographics that digital simply can’t.

Brands commission limited editions for a number of reasons. An extreme level of detailed planning – from design to delivery – goes into each and every limited edition. Here, though, we want to give you a brief snapshot of the printing, packaging and delivery chain we typically use for every limited edition, and what clients can expect from us.

As countries around the world ease their lockdowns, their governments hope that the return of trade shows will give their economies a post-pandemic shot in the arm. There will be only so much engagement that can be done at trade shows with social distancing in place, so think about what prospects are armed with and use those tools to your advantage.

A collectible that’s had a lot of thought put into it is already a powerful marketing statement, and shows the creative and emotional depth of your brand. Our limited editions and custom items are totally bespoke, and a way for entertainment brands to forge a deeper connection with their fans.

Consumers are more conscious than ever of brands and their green commitments, and statistics suggest that a brand’s carbon footprint is becoming a key factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions. One of the biggest carbon culprits across the entertainment sector is packaging.

If you’re looking to attract more attention to your IP, or want to attract more fans to invest in your brand, visual content is one of the best ways to do it.
As an experienced full-service creative agency, we work with you in a bespoke, personal way to make each and every graphic design project the best it can be.

Great alignment should be something that’s part of your brand and identity. Creating a clear vision and mission internally is key to fostering a strong company culture built around alignment.

Introducing moving elements to your social strategy such as custom gifs, videos, short clips and more can enhance your social strategy and help you hit your goals faster, too. For brands in the gaming and entertainment sectors, their presence on social media can make a significant difference to the way they interact with fans.

With the Coronavirus pandemic beginning to slow and lockdowns being eased worldwide, brands are thinking long and hard about how to adapt to a ‘new normal’. So, what does this new normal look like? That depends entirely on your brand, the sector you operate in and the goals you’re working towards as you get back to business.

As a creative studio, we like to push our limits. We’ve worked on a huge number of custom item projects and have produced video game controllers, custom consoles, PCs with amazing new skins, branded headphones... the list is endless. Like everything and anything in the marketing process, though, custom items can carry various pros and cons depending on the size of the brief, your budget and other factors that you may not have thought of.

Are you really getting the best results from your budget by paying multiple agencies? How do you know if they’re using the latest and greatest techniques to grow your business? The procurement process can be an incredibly hard one to go through. And that’s not just for smaller businesses and suppliers.

Good branding is about more than just having a sharp-looking logo. While a great logo is important, strong branding is about building connections with people.
Working with an agile creative agency experienced with branding can help maximise your budget and future-proof your brand.

We think it’s the right time to underline why planning ahead and taking China’s holidays into account (as well as unforeseen circumstances such as a pandemic) is critical to the wider manufacturing process.

Creative agility is also crucial in times of crisis. The recent Coronavirus pandemic is an example of that; the vast majority of businesses across the world have had to think of new approaches to the way they work to keep in their audiences’ consciousness.

For every game with guns, there are many more fun, child-friendly games made by big studios and independent developers with a loving spirit, creativity and togetherness at their core.

Once drafted, a storyboard is the blueprint for a strong animation, trailer or video. They’re a crucial part of the creative process when animation and live-action storytelling is involved, and getting it right will keep production costs and timings tight and see your brand take to the screen in the best possible way.

Press kits are a pretty universal way to open a direct line of contact to anybody with an interest in covering gaming, and are a more personal and effective way at generating conversations and column inches than a standard press release emailed to anybody and everybody.

Whether you host from a tent, an airstream, an RV, empty retail space or a hotel suite, approaching a satellite event in the right way can give you more bang for your buck, attract more targeted footfall, and can be much easier to activate - especially for smaller developers and publishers.

Our advice is to work backwards as a starting point. The entire ‘collector’s edition process’ takes approximately a year, so there’s plenty of time at the start to prepare a timeline and creative strategy to maximise its success.

Static is old news. The Cisco VNI forecast is predicting that video will account for 79% of global Internet traffic by 2020, growing 15-fold from 2017 to 2022. There has never been a better time to create videos than now.

If you play your cards right and pick the right influencer, that is. Depending on your approach and wider marketing strategy, influencer marketing has the potential to generate laser-focused leads for your brand in incredibly affordable ways.

The use of stock images is one of the fastest and most effective ways to create eye catching designs. We create designs for a wide range of clients, and images can end up being a huge strain on the budget if they are not sourced correctly...

TAKEOFF design trend predictions for 2019. We have collated our knowledge of the current design climate into a list of what the big trends are going to be this year...

For the second year running, TAKEOFF are finalists in the ‘Creative Agency of the Year’ category at the MCV awards 2019. Take a look at some of the work which got us on to this year’s shortlist...

In this article we discuss how less can definitely mean more when it comes to branding. Stripping away the unnecessary design elements from your brand can create room for the more important things...

Here is a roundup of some of our top picks for Gaming Collector's Editions released in 2018. The list includes some AAA titles, independent games and a few which we had the pleasure of designing...

A brand is essentially a visual identity. A brand is what distinguishes one product / business / service from another. The word ‘branding’ in business terms originates from cattle branding in the USA, where farmers would brand their cows to distinguish one herd from another...

Here at TAKEOFF we are always busy keeping an eye on the industry design trends and innovative design. This year we have collated our predictions of what will be seen more in the industry and design styles that will be pushing boundaries over the next year...

This post is a collection of the top five trends which have emerged in the PR industry recently. We work with numerous PR companies on a varied range of projects...