A practical guide to Gaming Marketing as a boost for your brand

by Logan Sandoval

 

Today, marketing is in one way or another related to all the activities carried out by companies or institutions. In this sense, it is important to evaluate new trends that allow promoting the marketing actions of products and services to reach new audiences and not lose relevance in the market.

The pandemic changed the way we interact, more than two years after its start, digital platforms made it an essential resource to facilitate the way we consume products or require services. They are a space that brands need to be in if they want to stay relevant, expand their reach, and achieve their business goals.It is no secret that the video game industry is stronger than ever and that it is growing. In 2021 alone, it generated sales of $180.3 billion. In this period, gamers spent an average of 1.4% more than the previous year and most of the purchases were made for mobile devices.

In Latin America, Mexico leads the income of this industry with 2,110 million dollars and has more than 68 million gamers. This means that 53.93% of the population is playing or is interested in video games, which places it in eighth place worldwide. In this way we can ensure that, far from reversing, the trends show that the industry will continue to grow and that the areas in which it will be interacting will be ever greater.

Looking at gaming marketing in this context ceases to be an alternative and becomes a necessity for brands, professionals in the field and communication and marketing agencies. Any brand looking to establish a greater connection with users has an opportunity with gaming marketing.

But what is gaming marketing and how can we start using it on a day-to-day basis? First of all, we must understand that gaming marketing is the use of video games or elements related to the industry in order to generate a deep bond with consumers or attract the attention of prospects with interactive and bidirectional actions.

The ways of using it can be very diverse, depending on the line of business of each company or brand, it is one of the great advantages of gaming marketing: it goes well with everything. Below we share some of the most relevant examples in which it can be used:

1. Performing actions linked to video games
2. Generating own video games
3. Inserting advertising in video games
4. Selling related products or services

With this, various benefits can be obtained, such as finding new business opportunities, capturing new audiences, increasing the notoriety and scope of brands, raising the level of interaction of users with brands – gamification increases the average session time in a website, reading time of an email and social sharing–, in addition to retaining audiences and collecting data on their tastes and preferences.a

The time to join this trend has not yet passed, however, the risk of not doing so soon may be high for many brands. The key in this matter is to find disruptive elements in unexplored markets that allow genuine relationships to be established with consumers. There are many examples of this, companies like IKEA or Nivea have implemented specific techniques for segments interested in this topic.

The myth of geeks and freaks has already been far from reality. Anyone can interact with gamified tools that make their day-to-day life easier and even help them develop new skills: children with math games on Nintendo, thousands of young people competing on Duolingo to improve a language, even older adults streaming via Twitch.

The challenge is not easy: betting on a strategy that involves videogames or that aspires to gamification, entails the knowledge and sensitivity to develop non-intrusive actions that contemplate interactive tactics and provide relevant experiences for the user, in order to increase the engagement or expand the brand awareness of brands.

The suggestion is to look for the right moment and niche depending on the brand’s turn and rely on experts who can promote that idea to take it to the next level of scope and results.