When we think of gaming, hardware like the Xbox, video games like Grand Theft Auto IV or role-playing games World of Warcraft often come to mind.So often our first impression of computer games is just young kids killing time - or killing aliens or pedestrians - which seems to have little to do with most of our customers or marketing plans.
But maybe it’s time for a rethink. Gaming can be as relevant to our campaigns as social media or mobile marketing – we perhaps just need to broaden our perspective.
First let’s re-think 'who' is actually gaming. The global video game and interactive market has grown dramatically to become a $47 billion market globally this year, and this growth is not just driven by kids. While we know most kids spend more time online then watching TV – it's worth noting that 60% of all game users are over 18, and that women make up 40% of gamers.
The point is that as people grow up they don't give up gaming. Their tastes just evolve to things like civilization building in Spore or to family fun with the wii Fit. And Asia is again leading at the forefront with some of the biggest participants globally, and young Thais are Asia's biggets gamers.
But realising that gaming has a broad audience is just the tip of the iceberg. The true impact of gaming is in how it's infiltrated our marketing campaigns:
- Online Advertising: The new online advertising is about interactivity and engagement. If you can get people to play a video, click a mouse on a game or enter their email - then they are more involved in your message and brand. The move from clicks to interactivity has revolutionized online advertising. They are some great examples of this here.
- Social Networks: Most online social sites are driven by applications that are fun and get other people playing along too. So whether it's a simple poke, buying them a virtual beer or playing Little Farm - games are what drive activity on social sites.
- Widgets: The rise of the desktop widget is driven by our need for fun distraction - relevant distraction of course! Thousands of widgets have been developed to give us tools that are both useful and entertaining, whether it's the weather, your Nike+ running schedule, the latest hit song.
- Viral Campaigns: The most popular viral campaigns are sometimes simple games. Check out this year's version of Elf Yourself for a great example.
- Main Campaign Ideas: With the success of the brilliant Get the Glass campaign for Milk, people are realising a game can be at the heart of their campaign efforts.
- Smart Phone Applications: Do people buy iPhones for 3G capabilities (still coming to Thailand soon...) or for all the great iPhone applications? My personal favourite would be the iBeer or pocket guitar :)
- Retail: People love incentives, and what could be a better draw then a branded video game such as this incredibly successful campaign from Burger King.
So if you are on Facebook, use an iPhone, have visited a campaign web site, passed on a funny email, clicked on an e-card for Xmas, interacted with an online ad or downloaded a widget – chances are you’ve been gaming, and so have our customers.
And why do we do it? Because since we were kids we've known play is a wonderful way to explore and learn. And it doesn’t stop as we grow up, it just changes to suit our different needs. So if you're a brand that wants to really interact with an audience online – gaming is often a simpler, more entertaining and more successful way to go about it.
Cheers, Rob
Feel free to add comments below, or for further questions or advice contact me at rob.h@th.arcww.com
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