My boy is an arrogant dip shit.

Yup, I said that. And you know what, it is very close to the truth and I have every right to say it. After all it is my DNA that made him so technically I can say whatever I want.

Why is he an arrogant little dip shit you ask?

It all started this weekend, a quiet weekend which was a little unusual for our busy body family. With nothing planned in our social calendar and with some free time staring us in the face I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to teach my boy a lesson in FIFA 2018.

There we were, me sitting with my controller, the standard controller you receive with the console and right next to me there was my boy gripping his customized camouflaged controller that cost a small fortune. To top it off, he was dressed head to toe in his football kit including the boots. A little over the top I thought, but ok he’s excited to see my greatness unfold in front of him as I teach him how the game is played with a massive goal fest.

That’s when he became a true dip shit.

Within the space of five minutes my boy had scored six goals against me and with every goal a real life celebration unfolded right in front of my eyes. There he was running around the house with his shirt over his head, celebrating like he has just won the World Cup in extra time.

What a dip shit!

How did this happen? Where did I go wrong? I asked.

There I was getting smashed by my boy who just two months ago was getting a whipping from me. Now, he has transformed into a gaming Christiano Ronaldo with stubby thumbs that can move at the speed of light creating all kinds of magic at my expense. 

It just wasn’t possible. There had to be an explanation to this. My conclusion was his new fancy controller. So I grabbed it off him and I proceeded to play and within a few seconds I gained a goal back, 6-1. Boom.

It was the controller, it had to be and it was like magic. It had to be something with the design, the feeling or the texture, something about it made it better, made me better. 

This got me thinking about designing my own customized controller to make my comeback and that’s when I remembered a fantastic campaign that recently won all the awards and was a great e-commerce idea that I really wish I had done based on this topic of customization.

That idea was called “Fanchise” and it was for Microsoft’s Xbox by Design Lab who worked with McCann London.

They needed a solution to the unique problem of getting consumers to purchase a customized controller. A hard task as they are much more pricier than the standard controller you receive off the shelf when you purchase a console.

What they did was genius. They took the cost of the controller out of the equation and turned the consumers into entrepreneurs.

How? 

It was easy, all you had to do was design your controller then promote it by whatever means you have and wait for it to be bought. The more people ordered your design, the more money you made. 

It was simple. Design. Promote. Earn. 

By giving a small amount of the profits earned from each sale back to the original designer they hit on something that really took off and people from all over jumped onto this new entrepreneurial idea.

Designs came flooding in and there were themes ranging from movies, to memes as well as topics revolving around social commentary. The array of designs created blessed us with unique controllers such as the “Trump” controller which was orange, yellow and white in color to designs that were trying to make a difference such as the “fuck Cancer” controller created in support of breast cancer.

It worked so well that people were scrambling to get their design out into the world as it had the potential to be the next big thing if it picked up traction. Then they spent whatever available time and tools at their disposal to promote their designs to the public to try make as much money as possible.

This is where another genius part of the campaign came in. Xbox then marketed the marketing the consumers created. They then promoted the best designs across more mainstream channels as well as even using celebrity endorsements. Which was great if your design was chosen as the boost in sales meant more money for you, compliments of the extra exposure by Xbox.

By creating a profit sharing model Xbox created an eco-system that worked for everyone. Gamers made money out of their customized controllers and Xbox made money out of the 350% in sales it created. It was a win-win for everyone.

Well, almost everyone, I still lost every single game on the weekend to my boy and his fancy customized controller and soon with his design he will probably be earning more money than me.

That’s why he is a dip shit.

I Wish I Had Done That.

Gary