STP

Segmentation of market for Angry Birds:

Segmentation is a scientific process thus it is important to figure out the variables for segmenting the market. The variables that can be used to segment the market for the Angry Birds gaming app are:

• Demographic- Age, Gender and Family size
• Psycho-graphic- Lifestyle and Personality
• Behavioral- User status and attitude

Targeting of audience for Angry Birds:

The game has an ESBR (Entertainment Software rating Board) rating of 'E' which stands for 'Everyone'. So clearly Rovio intends to target all people regardless of age, gender etc. But the game is more popular among a certain age group and among males. The following is a study by AYTM that has some stats about the TA of Angry Birds.

Positioning of Angry Birds:

After Segmentation and Targeting, the makers will Position their product. Positioning is done by POD (point of difference) or POP (point of parity) method. Angry Birds, when it was launched in the market it was one of the first of its kind of product. But one can say that it adopted the POD method because it was different from other games then available on the App Store, both in terms of offering a cheap price as well as being a very simple to play game so that anyone and everyone could play it. Even though there are many competitors today, Angry Birds has stuck to its cheap price and simplistic game play. 

Consumer Behavior

Consumer Behavior is the study of how individuals, groups, and organizations select, buy, use and dispose of goods, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and wants.

A consumer's buying behavior is influenced by cultural, social, and personal factors. Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence.

The following are some of the reasons for the popularity of the Angry Birds mobile game franchise:

• Simplicity of gameplay
• Spirit of competition
• Success or failure if you win or lose a level
• Cheap to download thus customer satisfaction
• Good graphics and sound

Angry Birds debuted in 2009 and has been downloaded over 300 million times. It’s on track to reach 1 billion downloads in the not too distant future. And here’s where it gets shocking- people play Angry Birds 200 million minutes per day. The following image gives a breakdown of the psychology behind why consumers buy and play Angry Birds.

Sales Management

Sales Management is the discipline of maximizing the benefits a company and its customers receive from the efforts of the sales force.
In terms of Angry Birds, the gaming app, there is no physical sales force as all sales happen in the digital virtual world. The product is paid for through online transactions and bought through one of the online stores mentioned in the distribution channels post. Thus there are no sales persons involved in the process. 

Distribution

Distribution takes place through intermediaries called channels. These channels make the product available to the consumers for consumption.
Angry Birds is gaming app that requires a platform to be played on. This platform could either be a mobile smartphone device with an operating system like iOS, Android, Symbian etc. or it could be a pc or it can even be played on a web browser like chrome. Since the app needs a platform to be played on, the best way for distribution of the app is through the app stores of all these platforms, and that is exactly what Rovio does.
Angry Birds is available on the following mobile and desktop through the following channels:

Brand

Brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.

Angry Birds has become a brand in itself. What started off as a mobile app game for the iOS is now associated with so many games and merchandise. Even though the game has been created by Rovio, the brand that has been established is Angry Birds. The symbol associated with it is not the Angry Birds logo but the Red Bird.

Rovio's strategy was to monetize on the fame that the game initially achieved. They did this by creating merchandise like Angry Birds t-shirt, mugs, plush toys, keychains and much more.

The Brand Elements of Angry Birds are the following:

 

Logo

Angry Birds also does a lot of co-branding. They have co-branded with star wars to create 2 Star Wars Angry Birds games. They have also co-branded with the movie Rio to create the Angry Birds Rio game.

Price

The reason for Angry Birds success was its low price. The game offers a lot for a very low price compared to other games. When Angry Birds was launched, people were used to games on other platforms at very high prices. On the iOS, it came out as a free version and also as a paid version with many more levels but even the paid version was for 0.99$ which is the lowest value for an app on the iOS. People found this to be a very affordable price for a game and were very willing to pay it.

It was important for Angry Birds to be that cheap because the product was new in the market and people had no idea what it was about. So to even get people to try the product they had to download it first which is why their free to play strategy worked. Once the game had been downloaded, customers thought that 0.99$ was an extremely valid price to pay for such a product. Angry Birds continues to be available at the lowest prices in the market when compared to other games. This pricing strategy that it adopts is known as value pricing. 

Integrated Marketing Communications: ATL & BTL

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC): Marketing Communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade and remind consumers- directly or indirectly- about the products and brands they sell and IMC is the marketing communications plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communication impact.

Marketing Communications can be either ATL (above the line) that caters to the mass like televison, radio, newspapers etc. or BTL (below the line) that caters to a niche audience like buzz (word of mouth), sales promotion, direct marketing etc.

Angry Birds main form of promotion is through use of social media. They have an extremely popular facebook page which has over 25 million likes as well as a twitter with about 6 million followers. 
Another form of promotion that works well for them is Buzz. They have a quality product and it pushes itself when people tell each other about it.
They also promote the game by publishing reviews online on popular game review sites like pocketgamer and ign.

Angry Birds does not need to advertise through television and radio because that would be a waste of funds. Their current marketing communications work well for them because it is reaching the right kind of audience. 

Services Marketing

Angry Birds is a mobile game that can be played on an iphone, android device or even your web browser or laptop. Therefore it is a tangible good with accompanying services. The services offered by Rovio (the company behind Angry Birds) can be considered as the website as well as the customer support number provided on their website.
The website consists of a page for Support which has a list of FAQs relating to every product that they offer. The FAQs are quite comprehensive and they cover every possible query that one could have. If your question is not answered there then there is a section to ask them the question directly and they get back to you with the answer.

Product Mix

Angry Birds started off as one game but now they have expanded their product mix to offer several different games. If we consider their product line they have mobile games, pc games, console games. Their product depth is also quite vast for all of these categories. Following is the product depth for the product line mobile games:

Angry Birds keeps introducing new games and keeps adding to their product mix so that customers feel that they are being offered something new and different and it keeps their interest levels up so that they may download more.

Product Life Cycle

A new product progresses through a sequence of stages from introduction, growth, maturity and decline. This sequence is known as the product lifecycle and is associated with change in the marketing situation, thus impacting the marketing strategy and marketing mix.

Since the app industry itself is fairly new, there have been several gaming apps that have been introduced, gained immense popularity and died down. This is known as a fad. Angry Birds, initially thought of as a fad, has established itself as a much longer lasting product and can be seen as being in the Maturity stage of its life cycle.

Angry Birds was introduced three years ago. In the introduction stage there was a free or lite version of the app available to make users familiar with the features of the game. Within a few weeks of release, due to promotion on various game review sites, the app became immensely popular and its sales kept rising. This was the growth stage. Rovio would release new levels of the game to add to the original game and sales went through the roof. Currently, due to the stiff competition from other games and the large variety of games available to customers, the sales have plateaued. Thus Angry Birds is currently in the Maturity stage of its life cycle. There is no other gaming app that has been around for as long as Angry Birds has with its level of popularity therefore it is difficult to predict when this product will go into the decline stage. It could take months or even years, depending on the ability of Rovio to keep adding new features and keeping the game as engaging.