Being the little geek that I am, as a kid, my most favorite toys in the world was
s!!Once, my grandfather got fed up with me, since I was a rowdy little boy, he bought this huge LEGOs spaceship that had about 2000 pieces. He thought to himself, “This should keep him busy for the whole day”. Then the moment he looked back, about an hour later, the whole ship was already built and I was back to my rowdy self!
Up to this day, I still treasure these small little building blocks because you never know what you can make with all the different pieces!
Now what does LEGOs have to do with anything? 
My love for LEGOs have brought me, today, to be a Advocate of this game:
What is Minecraft?
Minecraft is an Indie Game developed by Mojang.
The game revolves around blocks. Basically you go around breaking blocks and essentially building things from the blocks you break.
Here’s the Trailer for the game:
Minecraft is like LEGOs but in an entirely new platform and scale. There is no limit to what you can do in this game.
Here are a few images of what people have done with the game:
From Lord of The Rings’ Minas Tirith to a self made City, there is absolutely nothing you can’t do in this game.
One of the most amazing things this game has done is making itself known to the public. Without the use of any TV advertising nor gigantic billboards, this game currently has over 14 million registered players and nearly 4 million people who have bought the game.
What’s more, the game is currently in BETA!!
Meaning it’s still in it’s current testing phase before it is officially launched.
The success of this game is not only in it’s amazing concept, but also it’s marketing.
Team Mojang was able to make this game known, via the internet, most specifically, YOUTUBE.
I, for one, found out about this game via Youtube! I was browsing through the Comedy section of Youtube and I came a cross a “Live Play” of this game being shown in a person’s channel, and ever since then, I got hooked.
I became a YOGNAUGHT! (a avid follower of the Yogscast)
As far as my knowledge goes, the biggest advocates of Minecraft is:
The Yogscast is run by Simon and Lewis, both from England, and what it is is one of the “Live Plays” or “LPs” I first watched before I got into the whole Minecraft scene.
The Yogscast uses Youtube to broadcast their LPs and basically what they do is simply to record themselves playing the game with their voices. The success of the Yogscast revolves around the comedy they bring to the game and the complete and utter hilarious antics both Lewis and Simon brings!
Here’s their Official channel in youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/BlueXephos
I invite you to watch their “Shadow of Israpheal” series and all their other LPs as they are simply hilarious!
Seeing the opportunity, Team Mojang collaborated with the Yogscast and invited them to GAMESCOM, Europe’s biggest trade fair for interactive games and entertainment, to be Minecraft’s official spokes people along with Sonic Ericsson!
The use of Advocates and social media have been a prime marketing strategy of the Minecraft team.
The Yogscast, alone, has over 1 million subscribers and over 86 million channel views. Minecraft basically has free advertisement every time someone watches minecraft!
The use of advocates is an emerging field of marketing, the benefit that can be generated from using such advocates is yet to be fully quantified, but it is immense.
The Yahoo Advertising blog has a Info graph that gives summary of how advocates think.
You can read more here:
http://www.yadvertisingblog.com/blog/2011/05/27/how-brand-advocates-influence-social-media-marketing/
As the author of the blog [Becky Ebenkamp] says, “While it’s still hard to measure the precise sales value that marketers get from advocates, ultimately it’s about starting and engaging people in brand conversations, making this still-emerging field an important part of any modern marketing mix.”
Spoken like a true Advocate believer.
As countless businesses emerge, there is a competition to get chunks of the current market share that is out there today, and one of the best ways to do so is using Advocates to further make your brand known to the public.
Who knows, maybe you’ll find your own Simon and Lewis to boost your Brand Identity to high levels!
As for me, I am and always will be a Minecraft lover, and I invite you to give the game a go!
Release your creativity! and the community of Minecraft is HUGE! Just google the game and you’ll see!
Here’s a little something I did!
***I suggest just turning off the Audio as there was a problem with the audio upload***
Sorry!
Hope you Enjoyed!
