Audience Persona & Creative Brief

Point-of-View Persuasion Presentation

THE ART OF PERSUASION

The Directive:

Audience Persona: This presentation introduces the person we’re proposing the topic and strategy to. It provides thorough details outlined in the latter half of the guidelines to impress the CMO and present the audience persona.

The Result:

A mock-up persuasive video presentation for XBox Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Microsoft’s dramatic push into the console gaming market began twenty years ago with the launch of the original Xbox in North America. What was once a large and cumbersome piece of technology is now a sleek and modern household staple, and as consumer tastes have changed, we have seen the evolution of wireless controls, user interfaces, and the replacement of disc drives with USB ports. The recent celebration of Xbox’s 20th anniversary reinforces the need to coordinate and streamline company objectives that will catapult the brand into the future of gaming. The strategic team at Xbox is led by Chief Marketing Officer Jerret West, a dedicated member of the Xbox ecosystem who has been a prominent contributor to the current success and trajectory that Xbox has had in recent years.

As Microsoft’s top gaming executive, West oversees the company’s global game plan. With an expansive staff of over 200 people and an annual marketing budget of approximately $500 million, the upcoming advertising and promotional efforts Xbox will be dispersing for 2023 must be shrewdly divided and allocated to its various segments including first-party video games (like Halo and Minecraft), hardware (like the Xbox system and its peripherals), and services (like Game Pass, Cloud, and Xbox Live). Each faction contributes to the overall health and stability of the Xbox brand and its future positioning in the gaming marketplace. West is responsible for managing and organizing these efforts, including conception, creation, and rollout. The overall success or failure of Xbox is tied to West’s ability to effectively observe the gaming market. He must analyze current and growing trends within the industry, correctly gauge and maneuver around consumer predilections, and most importantly he must swiftly respond with inspiring creativity to lead the company into the next era of gaming.

West began his career at Xbox in 2003, and by 2005 he was responsible for the development, global strategy, and marketing campaigns for some of the highest revenue-generating games in the console space. In 2008, West was a strategic player in what is arguably the most significant move in Xbox history – the implementation and development of the Xbox Live subscription segment. This approach is widely considered the foundation for Xbox’s emergence as the future industry leader. As a director within the marketing department, he worked exclusively on the Xbox LIVE campaign. He oversaw the expansion of the platform from a branded gaming service to a broader entertainment service. The Xbox Live concept was further expanded in 2017 with the launch of Xbox Game Pass.

West is determined to revolutionize consumers’ ability to learn about, interact with, and play video games via the online space. The purchase of ZeniMax Media in 2021 and the impending acquisition of Activision Blizzard have allowed Xbox to expand Game Pass with some of the most recognizable video games in the world (Microsoft Report, 2021; Microsoft News, 2022). Furthermore, West has managed to maintain its position as an industry frontrunner in the expanding field of cloud-based video games. Initially launched to test the waters in 2020, the Xbox Cloud Gaming concept allows gamers to seamlessly continue playing across PCs, mobile devices, tablets, and consoles. West’s innovation and daring implementation of cloud-based gaming and his continued investment and attention to detail with the brand’s subscription services have already placed the company at the forefront of consumer preference. Ultimately West’s diligence and judiciousness has Xbox on track to take over as the industry leader within the next five years.

Creative Brief

The Directive:

Congratulations! The Chief Marketing Officer from your Point-of-View/Persuasion presentation was convinced and bought into the topic proposal.

Next, I composed a creative brief to kick off the project.

The first step in a creative project is to draft a guide that sets the objectives and goals of the client and designer based on information gathered from preliminary discussions as a way to establish expectations. This is what we call a creative brief. It gets everyone to buy into one vision, and more importantly, it determines the direction of the project.

This document defines the goal, reach and problem of the project. Writing the perfect creative brief is important since it is the essence of a great marketing and advertising campaign or project.

The Challenge:

Ask the right questions and include answers that can help your client/creative team “get” the problem, outline the strategy for solving that problem and understand the goals of the project. Within this short document of relevant information, you must inspire creative teams to do great work. So, while writing this creative brief, you need to be able to: