Ready Player One? Why don’t Irish marketers ‘get’ gaming?

Gary Osborne, Insight & Brand Planning Specialist

Image by OPPO Find X5 Pro on Unsplash

 

Marketers generally don’t miss a trick to connect with new audiences and target their branding messages effectively. Yet, there is a social activity which conservative estimates suggest is practiced by 2.7bn people around the world and depending on how exactly you define it will be worth more than $200bn in 2024 (McGrath, 2021) (double that of TV and movies combined).  Gaming, whether it’s Candy Crush on your smartphone on the way to work or online Fifa with the lads on a Thursday night can no longer be ignored by those who are trying to speak to consumers and influence purchase behavior.

 

Ian Mcgrath in his article on the topic for the Irish Times makes the point that gaming has moved from the basement to the boardroom and not just for brands targeted at younger males. ‘Gamers’ are not just nerdy teenagers sitting in the dark avoiding social contact and afraid of natural light. Console gaming (PS5, XBox and the like) now accounts for only about 1/3 of all gaming.  The balance is mainly those engaged in casual or social gaming with gamers over 45 years of age, now spending just over six hours a week on the activity, up 14% on 2019 (McGrath, 2021). 65% of people in Ireland gamed last month. (Inside Marketing,2021).

 

Good gaming examples of food and drink brands include the Orchard Thieves campaign ‘follow the fox’ game that drove awareness of the new brand amongst its target audience.  The concept here was to engage the target with a mobile phone game to use their facial expressions to control the fox (key brand asset of Orchard Thieves) and win prizes. The campaign was developed by Thinkhouse PR in Dublin.

 

What can Irish food and drink marketers do now to understand this phenomenon better and learn how to use it to promote their brands?

 

Join Twitch! This amazon-owned platform is the world’s leading live-streaming service and home to the largest community of gamers. Twitch is about unexpected fun, and community connection.  The snack brand Pringles is about bringing people together. This made Twitch the perfect place to promote its brand values and connect with an audience in the exact moment where the consumption was taking place. Other snack and soft drink manufacturers should take note.

 

Twitch can also offer smaller brands a great ideal to use existing digital creative (banner ads etc.) and test these in a controlled environment. Click through rates to the brand’s home page or other call to action is a great way to test if the creative and medium are really working to engage this audience and connect them to your brand’s message.

 

 

REFERENCES:

Irish Times. (2021, February 5). Gaming is the next big opportunity for marketing. The Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/advertising-feature/inside-marketing/gaming-is-the-next-big-opportunity-for-marketing-1.4474036

McGrath, I. (2021, February 21). Gaming has moved from the basement to the boardroom, so why do so many Marketers overlook this opportunity? Www.linkedin.com. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gaming-has-moved-from-basement-boardroom-so-why-do-many-ian-mc-grath/

Inside Marketing. (2021, February 4). Ep. 40 - Game On? Soundcloud.com. https://soundcloud.com/inside-marketing/ep-37-game-on

Barnhart, B. (2020, September 3). Twitch marketing: What it is and how brands can do it right. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/twitch-marketing/