Angry Birds

Aridito Priyambodo Micka Chiara S.

Chinthya Disa D. Natasha Adhalia
Dhoni Rahadi K. Trisya Widya U.
Iwan Yuli W.
AGENDA
• CASE SUMMARY
• MAIN ISSUES
• PROBLEM STATEMENTS
• ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
• RECOMMENDATIONS
 CASE SUMMARY
 Rovio acquired Pixelgene

 Rovio started work-for-

hire for other companies
(ex. EA, Namco, Real 2010
Networks, Nokia)

 Rovio suffered financial

2009  #1 paid game in UK and
US market (price
crisis  Mikael come back as Rovio reduction to 99 cent)

2006 CEO, and built Totomi

 Rovio created 42 You Tube
 Mikael, Mattherw Wilson trailers
and Niklas conduct Market
 Niklas Hed and his Research for mobile game
friends entered
programming
2005 market

competition  Angry Bird was launched

 Kaj Hed invested €1
in Finland (#1 paid game,
million for this
 Niklas founded $1.99) then continued to
company, and
“Relude” Sweden, Greece and Czech
renamed into
2003 “Rovio”
Republic

 Mikael, Rovio CEO,

left company
 CASE SUMMARY 2011
Managing
Success
• Angry Bird has been downloaded 420
million times.

• Mikael plans to steer Rovio from Mobile

gaming to media and entertainment
company.

• Rovio made Angry Birds game for

iPhone, Android and other mobile
platforms.

• Rovio expanded into plush toys,

cookbooks, licensing agreement with
major brands, and animation video for
You Tube. Then they planned to further
extend into a series of short animation
videos for You Tube and Angry Birds
movie.
MAIN ISSUES
1. Mobile revolution lead the rise of new mobile games from
competitors.

2. The trend of quick rise and fall of mobile games.

MAIN ISSUES
3. Angry Birds is Rovio’ first big
success in mobile game. This lead
Rovio to decide whether they want
to focus on their strong brand or
develop new games.

4. Rovio’ CEO vision to make them as

media and entertainment company
caused huge cost and financial risk
for Rovio, especially to have Movie
product.
PROBLEM STATEMENTS

What did Rovio do to stay success in mobile games

market?
 ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
Angry Birds is a trend that has sustained for
almost 2 years, and still famous because Rovio has
done several steps:

• 2009 marketing research Focus on Angry Birds • Branding via social media and
result informed Rovio fans press
about (1) Mobile • Build a brand representing
Revolution, and (2) App “family-friendly” game
• Leave traditional strategy
Economics
for this industry  focus to • Create short You Tube animation

be casual games instead of • Collaborate with large well

• Vicarious learning from produce Intellectual established companies (20th
other famous mobile games Property (IP) Century Fox, T-Mobile, Microsoft
Keep conducting • Provide games as services Bing, Finnair

marketing research for • Launch several new • Expanding into merchandise

mobile game market versions of Angry Birds

game Focus on its strong
brand (Angry Birds)
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
1. Keep conducting market research for mobile game market
Doing market research
from industry data
before developing games
• Insight from 2009
marketing research made
Rovio knowing that
estimation cost for Angry
Bird was around $130,000,
and their first focus on iOS
platform.
• Learning from “Darkest
Fear” and “Doodle Jump”
game
Revolutionizing
Developing game
game
• Game was developed by • Emerging of final game
considering technological design and story
environment influence (the
• Game launching via
Mobile Revolution)
distributor, and focus in its
• Mikael and Niklas made several
home country then
parameters for developing
continued to regions where
Angry Birds (ex. wordless game
users relied on native
play, no tutorial, low time to
language blogs for technology
load, short play time duration,
news, UK and US
etc.)
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
2. Focus on Angry Birds fans
Focusing to be
casual game
• Rovio decided to launch
game as completely free, but
ad-support on Android after
it penetrated to iOS as paid
game
• Rovio continued to expand
Angry Birds access to other
platforms: Palm, Symbian,
PSP, Google Chrome, Google
+ & Facebook
Providing games as
services
• Constant game free updates
(since September 2011,
updates for all versions of
Angry Birds has been done
almost once a month)
Launching several
new game versions
• Rovio introduced “Mighty
Eagle” – an extra bird to
slingshot at any resilient pigs
and automatically clear one
level per hour
• Rovio developed several versions
of Angry Birds based on recent
trend (ex. Angry Birds Star
Wars, Angry Birds Rio, etc.) or
holiday seasons (ex.
Ham’0’ween)
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
3. Focus on Angry Birds brands
Branding via Social
Media and Press
• Angry Birds was growing its
customer base at one of the
fastest rates among gaming
and tech. companies. Rovio
needn’t advertising cost
• Engaging fans via social
media (Facebook, Twitter)
can be used as online survey
You Tube Short
Animation, and
Merchandise
• Rovio made many short
animations in You Tube for
supporting its brand image:
“family – friendly” game
• Rovio also strenghtened
Angry Birds brand from
merchandising (plush toys,
apparel and accessories)
Collaborating with
large companies
• Rovio made several
collaborations such as for
Angry Bird Rio (20th Century
Fox), life-size version of the
game in Barcelona (T-Mobile),
in-app experience (Microsoft
Bing and Google Chrome),
Angry Birds plane decoration –
gift – in air competition
(Finnair)
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Rovio should make marketing research as regular activities to do though they haven’t
planned any new games.

2. Rovio should also brand its company besides its products. They should be acknowledged
as a company first if they want to be 2.0 Disney.

3. Rovio should put more effort to develop new games as alternatives once public
responses for Angry Birds decrease. There are only 5 games offered in Rovio’ website
outside of Angry Birds game versions.

4. Rovio should consider to expand its attractions business (theme parks, activity parks,
play parks) outside Europe, US and China to support its vision as media and
entertainment company.
THANK YOU
WORK CITATION
Gupta, Sunil & Rood, Dharmishta. 2012. Angry Birds. Harvard Business School March 9,
2012.

Kotler, Philip & Keller, Kevin. 2012. Marketing Management 14th Ed. United States:
Prentice Hall.

Rovio Entertainment Ltd. 2014. Products. Website: http://www.rovio.com/en/our-

work/games downloaded on September 13, 2014.