When you’re orchestrating global marketing campaigns for blue-chip B2B brands, you can’t afford distractions – you need to have a laser focus on the task in hand. But it’s not easy to switch off the constant temptation of social media feeds, trips to Caffe Nero, and putting cute pictures of the office dog on Instagram.
As a result, the marketing leads in your funnel can often go un-nurtured, wither, and die.
Working with UK-based toy manufacturer Winchester-Crowley, we think we’ve found the answer: we’re resurrecting the Tamagotchi virtual pet from the 1990s, and updating it for the modern marketer.
Enter the new, 5G-enabled, Marketing Lead Tamagotchi.
Dean Samuels, director of process-driven ideation, explains:
“Our studies show that content marketers can get easily distracted between meetings, often veering off into unproductive and inconsequential activities. In the worst cases, this distraction can lead to extreme disorientation, severely impacting the quality of the next meeting.
“The Marketing Lead Tamagotchi is designed to help keep at-risk marketers focused on their primary mission – nurturing leads – throughout the day.”
Reverse-engineered to fit within the retro-style shell of the original Tamagotchi toy, the Marketing Lead Tamagotchi uses the latest wireless and AI technology to gamificate marketers’ experiences – and integrate seamlessly with their marketing automation platform of choice.
From the moment their newly-hatched Pre-MQL Tamagotchi emerges nervously from its egg, Marketing Lead Tamagotchi owners must provide it with a constant stream of attention, pressing buttons for Digital Content, Direct Mail or Telemarketing Call, depending on its needs.
The aim is to keep the Tamagotchi’s Awareness and Engagement meters as full as possible at all times (although there is a pause function, to prevent the Tamagotchi from dying during eight-hour messaging workshops). Properly nurtured, the Marketing Lead Tamagotchi will progress from Pre-MQL through the MQL and SQL phases of its lifecycle, before eventually maturing into a Brand Ambassador.
Importantly, each Tamagotchi corresponds with a real-life marketing lead, via a sublight wireless integration with the agency’s digital infrastructure. Every button press triggers a real-life marketing touch point, to move the lead onward in their buyer journey: a call, an email, or an automated purchase order for an ABM report, emailed directly to our account managers here at Radix.
Agencies are already beginning to see the advantages of the new toy. “Our content marketers are now more focused, more productive, and less likely to wander off during their lunch breaks”, says Misha Kripke, managing director of digital transformation agency Impala. “Now we don’t have to send a driver round Shoreditch to scoop them all up every afternoon – they’re here, ready for another big meeting!
“In the meantime, our clients’ leads are all impeccably nurtured – and we don’t even have to pretend they’re real people.”
Of course, not every Marketing Lead Tamagotchi will make it through the entire lifecycle. A neglected tamagotchi will soon begin Googling competitors – or worse: setting up sales meetings with them – until it eventually becomes a Dead Lead.
“Obviously, like any decent agency, we have a full-time grief counsellor on the payroll,” Misha explains. “When a Marketing Lead Tamagotchi sadly passes away, we help our content marketers pick up the pieces of their shattered psyches and get their lives back on track.”
Asked for comment, Radix Communications creative director David McGuire mumbled a vague statement about everything having been better in the 1990s.
Want to give the Marketing Lead Tamagotchi a try for yourself? You can find out more by clicking right here.
Header image adapted from “tamagotchi staring into space” by _jennieMarie, and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
