5 original cases of brands promoting themselves through games

    Branding of games is a marketing tool that is becoming increasingly popular, and, according to some market participants, sooner or later will supersede branded applications due to their satiation with users. Indeed, according to Forrester reports , the average American or British spends 80% of their “smartphone” time on just 5 applications out of 24 downloaded; 90% of brand apps are downloaded less than 10,000 times. On the other hand, advertisers are looking for new formats for promotion - video advertising is becoming more annoying, and banner advertising does not find a mass response .
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    This is where mobile games with their audience come to the rescue. According to statistics, 37% of gamers are in the age group from 18 to 35 years old - that is, this is precisely the solvent portion of the population that positively perceives mobile advertising. Yes, by the way, despite the popular stereotype, women also play - the ratio of male and female gamers is close to 60/40. On average, game fans spend a third of their time playing on smartphones (for tablets this figure is twice as high).
    An advertiser can either create a game "for themselves" or integrate into an already successful product - it all depends on the goals and, of course, the campaign’s budgets.
    We asked what global brands can do to successfully advertise through mobile games.
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    1. Donate billions of kiwi
    In China, the majority of the population prefers juices to whole fruits, and to the question “Why?” a typical Chinese replies somewhere like this: "Well, this must be tormented, cut into pieces ...". However, this did not stop Zespri , the New Zealand supplier of kiwi, from trying to force Chinese mothers to buy their fruits. They decided to influence their parents through their own children: for this, Zespri integrated with Fruit Ninja , a popular children's game on WeChat . Instead of just cutting pieces of kiwi with the inscription Zespri, the company created “Vitamin-C Badge” for children who successfully passed the two-week test, during which they learned about all the charm of kiwi, after which they received additional points and opportunities in the game.
    Total: 18 billion branded kiwis, tattered in the game, 680 thousand children who participated in the test for two months.


    2. Teach you how to use maps.
    Surprisingly, many iPhones owners, when opening Apple Maps , were sure that they were using the Google Maps application . Google has decided to correct the "apple" ignorance by first collaborating with application developer Plain Vanilla to bring branded elements to the already successful QuizUpapp, one of the fastest growing games in the history of the AppStore. At the first stage of the advertising campaign, Google initiated a quiz Earth from Above, consisting of 1000 questions. Players from all over the world had to quickly identify cities, geographic features, historical monuments and popular places on the planet, with links to Google Maps. At the end, the user received a reminder about the ability to install Google Maps on their iPhone or iPad.
    Bottom line : more than 950,000 unique users played the geographic quiz, the average session lasted 6-7 minutes, and STR - 2.9%.


    3. Save a fatal woman with ... a processor.
    Technical giants also find interesting solutions to promote their products through games. So, Intel , introducing the second generation Intel Core processor on the market, focused on the target audience, which, as research has shown, spent time actively watching videos and playing games on smartphones. Therefore, on the Apple iAd platform, they created a product consisting of Youtube video, a demo version of the product (processor) and, in fact, game elements. Just by clicking on the mobile banner, gamers turned into the heroes of the technotriller, using the capabilities of Intel Core to save the main character and disarm the enemies.
    Total: the game exceeded all expectations of the creators, and even turned out to be more effective than advertising on television. For three months, more than 5 million users took part in the game, who played a total of 3,000 hours.


    4. To teach insurance with the help of Angry Birds.
    Through the games, completely “non-mobile” serious brands are promoted. For example, the American insurance company State Farm launched a campaign using the Angry Birds franchise . Having thought that insurance is a difficult topic that does not cause any emotional responses, except for the reaction “Why pay for air?”, Marketers chose a reminder strategy, saying, “Whatever happens to you, we are always there.” At that time, Angry Birds games were already downloaded more than 2 billion times, an active audience reached 250 million people a month, including different ages of men and women, including current and potential new customers of the company. An advertising campaign launched inside the game Angry Birds Go!becoming an "official insurer." If players damaged their race cars on the route, they could use branded power-ups, repair equipment and continue racing.
    Bottom line: almost one and a half billion races, which, in essence, is equal to the number of impressions, and 73 million times when users took advantage of brand support during the races.


    5. Play racing with the speed of a snail
    After the success of the Turbo cartoon about a snail that has gained super speed, Dream Works Animation together with Verizon released the Turbo Racing League application, where players competed in races, playing for snails, and announced a competition with a total prize pool $ 1 million. Each of the 80 fastest players received up to $ 25 thousand in prize money, and the finalists were invited to the Grand Finale Race Event in Los Angeles to compete for the title of Turbo Racing League Champion and win a prize of $ 250 thousand. Goals: advertising cartoon, advertising Verizon and, in fact, application downloads.
    2 months total: 17 million downloads of the game, 313 thousand likes of the Turbo Racing League Facebook page, 54 thousand followers on Twitter, more than 80 thousand positive reviews in the stories.


    As you can see, a variety of products are being promoted through games, and all this is presented in a light, unobtrusive way, which does not cause rejection, and therefore there is every reason to believe that this kind of advertising will gain momentum, including in the CIS market.

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