Public Relations professionals are always exploring new opportunities to grow their client’s brand, reach and visibility. One avenue that is new, reaches valuable demographics, and is currently being underutilized by strategic communications and marketing teams, is Video Games.
Starting with video games, brands tend to take the simple route, pop up or banner advertisement, when it comes to reaching the potential millions of players, many of which are part of valuable demographics including women and young people. Though some have success with this strategy, it has significantly less power as many players develop the ability to ignore or “tune out” these visual ads. To really reach consumers -- especially those in the Millennial or younger demographics -- content, value and experience are king.
Two excellent examples of creating content and value for potential customers to engage with are the value created by the Doritos and Call of Duty partnership for in-game content, or the Sonic the Hedgehog-like game put out by Toyota for its Yaris small car. Especially with the second example, Toyota got loads of people to voluntarily inculcate themselves in the Yaris and Toyota brands by offering a playable experience for potential customers to engage with.
These experiences do not need to be intricate or elaborate, just fun and/or valuable to the audience that you are trying to reach. One idea that I have been thinking about is to add digital value to physical purchases. When Microsoft first rolled out its “Avatar” system, players on the Xbox 360 were given the opportunity to create a digital representation of them that would be visible to their friends and other players.
After launching this system, several brands, including Skull Candy and Adidas, began offering branded content for purchase that a user could use to show off his/her personal style or taste. While this was good for branding, most saw little value in spending a dollar on digital headphones or pants.
These brands however, missed a possible branding opportunity that would not only have given their brand essentially free advertising, but could have incentivized consumers to purchase physical goods. Instead of forcing users to pay for branded digital content for their avatar, Adidas, Skull Candy, and others should have given away redeemable codes for these digital items with every purchase of their products. For example, if someone goes and buys a Fox Racing hooded sweatshirt, they unlock a Fox Racing hooded sweatshirt for their digital Avatar. This is not only applicable to the Xbox platform; this could include themes, pictures, and “cover photos” for Facebook, Twitter, and any other social platform.
There are many opportunities like this to reach the millions of video game players around the world, and as the hobby continues to grow, especially in demographics like woman and Gen-Y, it will be increasingly important to provide strategic content that reaches your targeted audience.