Create to entertain, not to advertise
Working Paper No. 15
The video games’ Big Bang happened 50 years ago. With Odyssey Magnavox began one of the biggest revolution entertainment had ever seen. And ever since, a lot happened. The massification of video games with the introduction of microprocessors chips. Or even the evolution from TV consoles to smartphones (we cannot underestimate the impact of Angry Birds or Candy Crush to the boom of gaming at this moment!).
At first, it’s important to identify and get to know who this audience is. Gaming it’s not just a kids’ or “geek” thing anymore, and we can easily conclude that it is reductive to measure it solely based on demography data.
Gamers is not an audience any more. It’s everyone.
I'm a strategic planner (and gaming lover), therefore I like to take a deep dive and understand who these players are. According to Statista, 85% of internet users play video games. Of these 85%, how many are casual gamers? And pro gamers? How many fathers play Fifa at night when their family are sleeping? How many people catch up with their friends over the phone on the weekends while playing Call of Duty?
Over the years, we noticed a redefinition of the gaming audience. It is no longer composed of children and teens as the teens from 2000s are now adults with purchase power. It is a “Mainstream” audience, meaning that Gaming Culture is now part of Pop Culture. Just to make things clear: if before we would find games based on movies, now we will find movies based on games.
The gaming community is growing. Brands and agencies are eager to know their interests. So, it’s important to get to know what they play, get inside the game itself, get to know its dynamic, hot topics… Or even to understand the streaming and content creator’s aspects of the industry.
Brands that help the game before they advertise.
So how can we find the perfect fit between brand, gaming, and gamer? To find the answer to this question, we as marketers and advertisers, need to solve problems and improve the gaming experience to the target that we want to impact. To think about a solution to gaming culture without intoxicating with our brand. Let’s think about the approach from Wendy’s. It didn’t interrupt the game experience with advertising - the easiest solution. Instead the company created a new platform inside Discord, where gamers could communicate with each other.
It is important to highlight that each game has different niches, and how we can find inside of each something new to offer - go to TikTok and see how different types of content there is just about Fifa. You will find the usual gaming tips, but also everything about trading coins to the player reviews… The world is infinite.
However, everything isn’t all bright and beautiful. Right now, there exists many issues inside the gaming community that brands can help to solve. We can think of structural questions, like problems women face with harassment while playing videogames, or even racism issues. Gaming is supposed to be for every gender and race, and not to be generator of hate.
Brands can help solve these issues through transparency, clarity, and authenticity (understand the audience, context, and the game itself). Search for cultural opportunities. What are the truths about the game, possible tensions - what are the problems, and which solutions we can find.
Find you way to game.
And how about the gamer? There are still many things to discover about it. The passion (or not) for e-sports. Which platforms do they use to communicate and share e.g. TikTok right now is the best platform to amplify a gamer’s content. They identify one niche, get their community there, and then, they move to any of each streaming platform there is such as Twitch or YouTube Gaming, where they can share content daily.
In a nutshell, there are five simple ways that brands can participate in the gaming community: Through ads (obvious but effective), branded games (like KFC had done), in-game integration (Travis Scott did it with Fortnite - a good example of integration of gaming in pop culture), live streamings participation or e-sports sponsorship.
It’s all about understanding your timing, the empathy between brand and gaming community, and above all, the core of the industry: have fun.