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How to be authentic when marketing to gamers

While it’s tempting to jump right into the lucrative gaming market, brands need to get their story straight first

How to be authentic when marketing to gamers

“It’s funny. When you think about a business’s intentions when it gets into the gaming space, it has an authentic desire to get through to gamers. But it’s the execution that establishes the legitimacy of the work they’re trying to do. When you see brands trip up in their approach to gamers, that comes from ignorance or wanting to rush things without doing the research.”

That’s according to Jonathan Dodd, global creator partnerships manager at EA Sports, speaking as part of a panel discussion at the Campaign Gaming Summit 2022

Other participants included Tarja Porkka-Kontturi, director of communications, The Global Game Jam; Edward Peters, head of digital partnerships & business development, European Tour Group; Johnny Winn, head of advertising, O2, VMO2 and Virgin Mobile; and Anthony Lawson, head of sales – EMEA at Activision Blizzard. Campaign’s own Arvind Hickman moderated the panel. 

The idea that brands will fall flat with gamers if they take shortcuts struck a chord with Tarja Porkka-Kontturi. “If you’re familiar with gaming Twitter,” she said, “it’s a bad place to be if you’re getting your PR wrong.”

“And it’s not just outsider brands who get it wrong,” said Johnny Wynn. “Gaming companies themselves get their own games wrong, sometimes, when they are doing marketing initiatives or product launches. Brands, when they’re doing activations within games, don’t always get it right. But what gives us succour, is that there are plenty of examples of brands doing it right.”

Another topic up for discussion was how to engage successfully in the metaverse. “There are a lot of businesses that naturally fit in that space”, explained Anthony Lawson. “For instance, with gaming, telcos can talk about latency and speed – that’s a natural fit. There are brands with a similar affinity for the metaverse. We’ll probably be seeing some pretty cool campaigns from fashion, for instance.” The panel then mentioned the Gucci bag that, when released as an non-fungible token (NFT), became more valuable than the same bag in real life.

Dodd spoke about the wisdom of listening to influencers and other creative partners with whom brands can connect with to reach gaming audiences. “If you’re working with creatives and you’re a new entrant to the gaming space, lean on them and their expertise. Let them guide you through the experience. If you try to target their audience without consulting them as the gatekeeper, you’re going to mess up.”

Ed Peters reaffirmed this need to engage in a way that meshed with the culture of the particular game or segment you’re targeting. “Thinking about the launch of the golf game PGA Tour 2K, the realism and the authenticity of the experience made for a really strong launch. From a partnership’s perspective, this very much creates a value-add proposition for sponsors. The way they bring this to life within the game is really impressive.”

Other topics the panel covered included the need to get internal decision-making right, with many campaigns poorly targeted because senior leaders, who don’t understand gaming, had too much influence over the creative direction. The speakers also emphasised the need to set clear goals and metrics for any gaming campaign, and to be sure to choose gaming content and creators that align naturally with your brand identity. 

On the subject of in-game advertising, the panel had some interesting insights into how technology from display markets is beginning to change the way advertisers buy in-game media. “There are aggregators that allow you to buy out-of-home media, within games, programmatically. We’ve considered doing this,” said Winn. “We haven’t tested it, but we want to. Some of the smaller games, when you add them up, it’s a lot of eyeballs. That would mainly be on console and PC. 

Check out the Campaign Gaming Summit 2022

 

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