Statistics show that there were 2.6 billion gamers in 2019 and 2.7 billion in 2020. This year, another 100 million have been added, and the number is expected to exceed 3 billion in 2022. Digital marketing has therefore become even more important, and marketers must adapt quickly.

Brands have started rushing in to sponsor or tie in products within game items, or to use gamer insights in campaigns. However, they must be careful not to hard sell and force the brand onto gamers until it becomes annoying. We have a good case study of a campaign that successfully used gamer insight: NIVEA Men, a major men’s skincare brand, shifted its target audience from outdoor lifestyle consumers to all-night online gaming groups whose skin breaks out after gaming for long hours.

Click to watch the ad for this campaign here:  https://bit.ly/3fzW4Ti

The creative team at FCB Bangkok, an agency within YDM Thailand, used gamer insight in its presentation by picking up the gamer catchphrase #Tun to draw attention. Even the CG scene showing acne clearing up was designed to look like an online game, making the marketing response more playful and effective. The media plan also focused mainly on online media to match the target audience. As a result, sales increased by 3% against the trend, while the overall men’s facial cleanser category declined by 1.8% in the year the campaign launched.

COVID lockdown further boosted download numbers

It is very clear that as soon as COVID lockdowns began in June 2020, the number of people watching videos on Twitch worldwide surged past 2.5 million and continued to trend upward in 2021, when many countries, including Thailand, faced second and third waves.

In addition to staying home and playing more games, game-related video viewing also became significantly more popular, such as e-sports competitions like Football PES, game tutorial clips, and game streaming channels on YouTube. Game downloads also increased. The question, then, is how to design a digital strategy that successfully meets its goals.

Cookie Run: Kingdom is another case that used gamer insight to create highly effective creative work, proven by more than 5 million downloads within just a few months of launch.

How should brands adapt to gamer insight?

The gaming industry continues to grow every year, even against the COVID-19 crisis, becoming a business three times larger than the film industry, worth US$146 billion, because it can deliver shared entertainment anytime and anywhere. For a brand like Cookie Run: Kingdom, running just one campaign may not be enough. It must understand the insight that gamers do not only play to socialize with friends, but also want to show off to them. The game-loving creative team at FCB Bangkok therefore came up with the hashtag #BuildDomForTheWorldToKnow, deliberately using wording familiar to gamers to entice them into downloading the game.