Most forms of advertising these days cause customers to lose interest. In worst cases, even loyal customers get frustrated seeing the same ad repeatedly.
Reaching out to potential customers in a refreshing way is essential for businesses. The perfectly personalized message can get ignored if it lands in the promotions inbox.
More and more users are playing games on their mobile devices. In fact, according to a study, games account for 43% of all smartphone usage. Its safe to say games are an integral part of life for almost half of the internet population.
Top brands utilized this opportunity to connect deeply with their audience through games. Advert enabled games are an excellent way for companies to build rapport and an immersive brand experience for their audience.
Branded casual advergames are simple, easy-to-play games with various brand references placed inside. The best thing is even a modified version of the popular casual games can bring impressive ROI for a brand.
We have compiled a list of 10 famous brands that have successfully executed marketing campaigns with advergames.
Gucci Grip
Surprisingly luxury fashion brands are embracing advergames fast. Gucci released Gucci Grip.
Gucci Grip is an 8-bit pixel art run game in which a skater runs through various environments filled with Gucci products. This runner-style game is highly addictive and able to keep a player engaged for over 15 minutes.
Gucci also offers a robust arcade featuring more games. Gucci obviously plans to capitalize on casual gaming. This is their winning move to attract the GenZ fanbase.
Louis Vuitton Endless Runner
Louis Vuitton released the 1980-style platformer game for Virgil Abloh’s Autumn Winter 2019 show. The game is free and hosted on LV’s website.
This third-person casual arcade game challenges players to dodge objects like traffic cones, phone boxes, and bins. At the same time, their task is to collect Louis Vuitton-themed tokens. The collected tokens increase their score and health.
Louis Vuitton made this game easily playable with a nostalgic style. This excellent marketing tactic enabled LV’s audience to interact with the brand.
Chex cereal Chex Quest
Chex Quest was released in 1996 to promote Chex cereal. This is an award-winning promotional game built with the DOOM engine but is less violent in nature.
The gameplay is attractive with a Chex warrior trying to rescue Chex people from an evil villain Flemoids. The intergalactic theme made the game popular among its targeted children’s market.
The company distributed 42 million copies of this game inside cereal boxes for free. The enormous success led to releasing Chex Quest 2 (1997) and Chex Quest 3 (2019).
Burger King Sneak King
Burger King attempted to put customers in control of its mascot. The Sneak King game was a notable success for the brand. In fact, this was one of the top 10 best-selling games in 2006.
The four-level game tasked players to deliver meals to hungry NPCs. Each level featured a unique map with 20 challenges.
Despite being reviewed as bizarre, the game was a massive success. Burger King sold 2.7 million copies – each copy for $3.99 with any value meal.
Barclaycard Waterslide Extreme
Barclaycard released the Waterslide Extreme game, followed by an ad campaign. The banking service made an excellent attempt to promote their contactless payment technology.
The game lets players ride a series of waterslides in different environments. With a tilt-enabled mechanism, the player could navigate down giant waterslides.
The iOS game went viral within a week, with players in 57 countries. It acquired over 10 million downloads. The game conquered the top place in the download chart in 19 countries.
Coca-Cola’s Pepsi Invaders
Released in 1983, this game is a modified version of popular Space Invaders. This game was intended to boost the morale of Coca-Cola employees.
The game featured unlimited lives and three minutes time limit to complete levels as much as possible. The mod replaced aliens with P-E-P-S-I and required the player’s UFO canon to shoot them down.
This is a rare collection game with only 125 copies distributed. Collectors reportedly sell copies for up to $1,825 on eBay.
7-Up’s Cool Spot
A single-player platformer game featuring the mascot of 7-Up, Cool Spot. David Perry developed the game in 1993 at Virgin Games USA.
The mascot-inspired character could jump, attack, and climb. The player needed to rescue other similar Cool Spots from the map.
The game ranked 88th as the best Super Nintendo game of all time. Virgin Interactive later released a sequel, Spot Goes To Hollywood, with a 3D orientation.
Chipotle Race to Rewards
Chipotle Mexican Grill launched this advergame in June 2021 to celebrate the Chipotle Rewards program. They paired the launch with a Tesla 3 giveaway.
The player needed to avoid obstacles on the farm-inspired map and win game points. The racer could choose an electric car, electric bike, or electric skateboard.
The campaign was well appreciated among online gaming communities. Within 2 days, the game had 2.1 million gameplays, over 15K social shares, and 71,000 new Chipotle Rewards members.
Ford’s Football
Ford launched this as a lead generation campaign. The target was to promote one of Ford’s cars in Sweden.
The player clicked a web ad banner to start the game. When expanded into full screen, the player needed to shoot three penalty kicks through the car’s back door.
In the end, the user could watch a video and make an appointment to visit a local dealership.
KFC’s Snack in the Face
KFC Australia commissioned the game advert Snack In The Face, in 2013. The fast-food chain designed the campaign specifically for its mobile game-loving younger audience.
The game featured 25 achievement rewards throughout its various levels. Starting with a $1 discount, BOGO for easy levels, the player got rewarded with a free product on the most challenging levels.
The game was a tremendous success as KFC relaunched the game in 2014. KFC strategized the game as a long-term digital strategy for the brand. Reportedly they gave away 140k KFC snacks and multiple achievement prizes during the campaign.
In a nutshell
Advergames or branded games can outperform any other forms of marketing strategy when executed properly. A viral game will help audiences remember a brand for a long time.
The unique approach of advergames overcomes many limitations of traditional advertising. With the added excitement of fun games, a brand strengthens its relationship with customers.
In today’s cookieless world, advergames are an effective way to collect first-party data without annoying customers. Clearly, this method is getting more attention among top marketers.
Traditionally for small brands, advergames have been costly to develop and thus ignored. As a business owner, you should adopt advergames early and explore their benefits to stay ahead of the competition. Help your brand to go viral by maximizing brand exposure.
We are making this possible with our ready-to-use advergame library, on a budget. Fill up this form and get your first advergame for free.
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