Marketing today: the best of both sides of the brain

Today was one of those days where I used every inch of my brain at work. The left side spent a chunk of time analyzing home sales absorption pace, calculating cost increases and thinking about projecting inflation rates. And it hurt. The right side earned its keep today envisioning the customer experience we will create in a new community, and thinking about the power of the subtlety of words chosen for the planning principles that will drive the development and creation of the same community.

As I sat in traffic driving home I thought back over the path of my life and how I ended up here in a senior marketing role. The only non-medical person in a family of well-accomplished doctors (all with PhDs or very focused specialties) ... I have my four year undergrad ... I never quite fit the family mold. But as marketers go, I pride myself on being one of the lucky ones who covets the balance between expansive "how might we" creativity and an almost forensic love of the analytical detail.

So, I may not be able to operate on an eye to save someone's sight, or save a trauma patient in the ER, or manage highly complex drug therapies for a rare auto-immune disease. That much is for sure.

But I can thank whomever and whatever got me here for the awesome opportunity being a marketer today provides to test the creative and analytical sides of my brain. It's a precious balance, and one that keeps each day interesting.

Casual Gaming. Big Escape. Bigger Money.

News broke today that Electronic Arts is acquiring the mobile game creator, PopCap, for $650M, and additional stock and performance bonus options that take the price up to $1.2B.

Wow. Big money for the mobile games, casual entertainment space. Bejeweled is one of PopCap's most popular assets, and with this acquisition it joins Angry Birds (from Chillingo) under EA's growing ownership.

Whether waiting at the doctor's office, or for your carpool buddy to join you on the ride home, or when attending a boring speaker at a conference, or waiting to pick the kids up at school, there's nothing casual about casual mobile games. They are ubiquitous and obviously fill a void. Space. Time. Easy escape. Whatever this void is, the value continues to increase.

What happened in days of old before handheld devices created a captive market for new casual games? I remember the very rare occasions I took an airplane trip as a kid, and buying word search and crossword puzzle books to pass the time. or MAD comics, and the Archie Digest. Same deal. Different time. Different media. And I would bet a whole lot less profit.

Find a void to fill.
Create a product that sticks.
And sell to the highest bidder. Then enjoy the ride until another innovation comes up to fill that space we humans need to constantly fill up with stuff like Bejeweled that exists to just give us a break.