Branding Beyond Slapping
Your Logo On Something
Excellent article from Adweek.com’s Saneel Radia has been posted to Yahoo News. It focuses on the need to look at marketing within video games (as well as other media) from level of interactivity with the consumer, rather than slapping your logo on any ol’ space in the game and waiting for users to knock you down and shove money in your pocket.
Here’s Saneel’s take on it: “…when brands think about music’s role in their marketing, do they find ways to integrate their brand name into lyrics? The answer is a resounding “no” for a number of reasons. First, they aren’t dazzled by music’s interactivity. Second, the music industry is motivated in ways that movie studios and game publishers are not (yet). The state of their business requires finding innovative ways to partner with brands, but there’s no reason we need to wait until gaming publishers are in dire need of our dollars–because that’s not going to be the case for a very long time.”
Three suggestions to consider:
1. Approach game publishers as partners
2. Determine how the brand might add value to the consumers’ experience
3. Include all aspects of gaming in the equation: from retail experience to social interactivity to extension of game content
In my opinion, the most important question Radia raises in considering how to include your brand within gaming content (or ANY media content) is this: How do your consumers choose to fit gaming into their communication platform? Answer that question and you’re impact will go beyond just slapping your logo up on another billboard — whether in the real world or a virtual one.
