Angry Birds: "Our ambition is to become the biggest entertainment on the planet"

Photo: Petr Bystrov/RIA Novosti

In just three years, the Finnish company Rovio's Angry Birds game has broken all popularity records. In the first year and a half, the game was downloaded by 100 million people - this is a figure that Tetris, recognized as the Guinness Book of record holder for distribution, reached in 20 years. There are now more than 1.7 billion downloads of Angry Birds, which means that approximately 28 percent of the entire population of the planet has at least once thrown birds at pigs. The monthly reach of the audience (people who constantly play and follow updates) is more than 200 million; not a single American, or indeed any TV channel in the world, can boast of such figures. It's not limited to the game. The guys from Rovio have already launched a huge animation studio, started producing all kinds of goods like toys, covers for the iPad, and so on. The Angry Birds drink line has overtaken Coca-Cola and Pepsi in Finland. There is also a separate series of books with the characters in the game. And now they have begun to build children's amusement parks all over the world.

But even this seems not enough for them. Marketing Director and one of the inspirers of Rovio, Peter Vesterbacka, who came to Moscow at the invitation of TBWAAcademy, grins: “This is just the beginning, we have crazy ambitions.” PublicPost spoke with the Great Eagle of Angry Birds (Mighty Eagle is his name in the company) and found out how it happened that even those who had never agreed to play computer and mobile games suddenly began to destroy the green ones with pleasure, crookedly grinning pigs.

- Peter, why all the birds and pigs?

Everyone knows that pigs steal eggs from birds, and birds get very angry because of this. But it’s also important that we just wanted to do it a little differently, not like everyone else. We could, of course, create a Happy Birds game, but in the entertainment business, the most important thing is to create emotion and reaction. And any reaction is good. With Angry Birds, it's natural for people to ask: Why are birds angry? And when you draw a person into this dialogue, then consider that you have already won half the battle, you are interested in him, he is involved and starts playing, watching our cartoons, drinking our soft drinks.

— Why do you think even those people who had not previously been seen playing computer games got hooked on Angry Birds?

It's a combination of many things. Of course, first of all the characters. It is quite difficult to explain why, for example, people like the hero Hello Kitty? I have no idea. But there is something about them that attracts people. If we talk about our game, then the timing of the product’s release to the market was very successful for us. It was 2009, an explosion of user interest in touchscreens, so we were very lucky with the right timing. Many people were not previously interested in playing games on computers or game consoles, because they were scared off by the process itself - you have to use joysticks, a lot of buttons, that is, everything is not easy. And with a touchscreen, even a two-year-old child can figure out how to play Angry Birds. You learn very quickly. It was even suitable for grandparents who had never played anything before. Our characters are very accessible and instantly attract attention, through them there is immediately a good connection with the game, and people always somehow relate themselves to the heroes. For example, in Japan, each service, each business assigns itself a specific character so that people can build their relationships with him. From this perspective, Japan is generally a very interesting market, and you can learn a lot from them.

- But how can you relate yourself to a bird? What's the connection?

One of the reasons people feel close to our heroes is because birds aren't perfect. They are angry birds. Some may say, “It’s not good to be angry,” but this is also a reaction. Not only birds are imperfect; even pigs are not absolute evil. They're just hungry, that's why they steal eggs. We humans are also far from perfect, we have a variety of emotions, and we can also be very destructive - and it’s quite easy for us to relate to this imperfection.

— You spoke at the lecture about popular heroes: Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty - they are all good, and Angry Birds, to tell the truth, is not a fairy tale at all, it is, in fact, mass murder. Why do you think people need to kill things?

I don't think murder is important here. If you look closely at our game, then it is, in fact, not about murder. It's more like just fun, and the birds don't actually die. What's important here is that they're so itchy and flawed and evoke emotion, unlike traditional characters like Mickey Mouse, who are all a bit boring. People are now expecting something close. We all know that the world is imperfect, which is why the game is a little rough and unpolished.

— You said that the kind of audience coverage you have achieved gives you enormous influence. How do you use it?

We use our brand to promote and develop education. We truly believe this is possible and want to make learning fun. We also believe that if you can build education as a successful, sustainable business, then you can really change the world. Education is extremely important. I even think that part of our success is that we are from Finland. We have a very good education system. Largely thanks to her, a lot of successful companies and startups have been created here; she helps develop this type of talent, teaches not to be afraid to try new things. In each country we look at how we can work with education. In Russia too, here we publish books with Angry Birds and are thinking about cooperation with schools and parents to make Russia and the world a better place.

— In one of your interviews, you said that there is always another height in front of you that needs to be taken. Which one is it now?

Well, yes, our game was downloaded by several users, but this number is still quite small. A good example is Coca-Cola. They make a billion drinks every day. And only a few tens of millions of people play our game. So if you look at these numbers, we are still at the very beginning. There are many larger and more successful companies, and we have room to strive.

Many people ask what game is next? So, creating a hit game is very, very difficult, so Rovio focused on developing Angry Birds as a brand, developing and complementing it in every possible way, building a fan base around it. Angry Birds is the fastest growing consumer brand to ever exist. Our ambition is to become the planet's premier entertainment destination.

The story of the creation of the Angry Birds game, told by Peter Vesterbacka at the Marketing Through Games lecture from TBWAAcademy.

This game is far from the first in the history of Rovio. She's 52 to be exact. And she had almost seven years of trial and error with other games ahead of her. Game designer Jaakko Iisalo. While developing the game, he drew characters like these, and everyone really liked these birds. The game was in development for 8 months, and Rovio only had 12 people at the time. Now there are 650. On December 11, 2009, Angry Birds was launched on iPhones.

Timing was very important, as Vesterbacka says: “The iPhone and the app store just happened.” Previously, the distribution of games to the market was much more difficult and was controlled by several large companies.

We used the Tetris strategy: be on all devices, consoles and computers. In addition to design development, analytics was a very important aspect; the company studied hundreds of games, trying to understand the success and failures of others. “Of course, luck is always important,” says Vesterbacka, “but it’s also important to be prepared.” Every detail in the game was carefully worked out. There were about 30 options for appstore icons alone.

The first indication that the game could become great came when co-founder Niklas Hed went home for Christmas. The usual story - I showed the game to my mother on the phone. As happened with 51 predecessors: “Yes, dear, that’s very nice,” and the phone was returned to Niklas, this time everything happened differently: all Christmas, my mother played Angry Birds without stopping. And she was just one of those who had never played electronic games before.

Then they became the number 1 game in Finland through word of mouth: they asked friends and acquaintances to download the game. Vesterbacki jokes: “There weren’t many iPhones, so they became the first ones pretty quickly.” Then in the spring of 2010, a Swedish athlete who fell and couldn't compete in the Olympics said in an interview on Swedish television that being at the games without participating was terribly boring, but at least she had Angry Birds. So they became the first in Sweden. Then England, a month later in the States. Soon they exceeded a billion downloads.

From the very beginning, Angry Birds was intended to be more than a game, but rather a service that would create a healthy addiction. The main thing is the satisfaction of the fans, and therefore the game is constantly updated, new stories, heroes, territories are invented for it, and always new incentives for players. In December 2009, the classic version had 63 levels, several birds, and if you download the same version now, there will be more than 400 levels and many more birds with different abilities.

The brand has expanded into consumer goods as well. Last year, 45 percent of money earned was from physical products, not digital. This includes: toys, clothes, shoes, drinks, badges, covers and several thousand more items.

Now the Angry Birds empire is a game; consumer goods; own line of soft drinks; an animation studio (the largest in Northern Europe), which releases a new cartoon every week for game owners; books, including the production of original local content in each country; amusement parks. And the desire to take over the world.