Playful brand experiences

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A lot of successful and popular marketing campaigns use play as a key element. Playing is an inherent human behaviour that builds relationships while encouraging exploration, participation and challenge. Creating a playful experience for marketing purposes has the same aim: to build a relationship between the players and the brand and convert them from players into consumers. Before creating a game for a target audience marketers need to know which type of playful experience they can choose to achieve their goal.

Creating a brand image The goal through play is to position the product, showcase its characteristics, the context, the environment, and the associations with which the brand can identify itself.

Engagement Play is an active quality that requires participation, interaction, and exploration. By giving the player a playful experience to be engaged by, it is more likely that the player becomes a consumer.

Social interaction Sometimes playing with others creates a great experience. This is especially true in contests or competitions. Players can compete against each other while enjoying the same experience together.

Sharing Sharing a victory, participating in a game and being fascinated about it with others can be as important as the playful experience itself. For the brand it also generates word-of-mouth.

Learning The more people know something about what they enjoy, the more they like and want it. By providing information about the product while playing increases the chance for turning players into consumers.

Playful Brand ExperiencesPlayfulness as a part of offering new

experiences can be used very effectively by

brands. Its significance is that it can influence

buying, include a product’s purpose, and reflect

its value proposition.

by Eva Laura GalPhoto Credit: MSNBC

Kuliza Social Technology Quarterly Issue 07

1Creating a Brand Image: Heineken

Heineken’s ads have featured legendary people in extraordinary situations in recent years. Its heroes are masculine and attractive men who always solve a situation regardless of how tricky, dangerous or impossible it seems to be. In the ‘Open Your World’ campaign they sponsored the latest bond movie Skyfall to use James Bond to enhance this image. The ‘Crack the Case’ campaign offered consumers a personalized and interactive experience through an online game. After accessing the game, the player finds himself/herself on the same train in the mountains where their advertisements were shot. One can be Heineken’s ‘man of the world’ while hunting the case which used to belong to Bond. The mission is to find the case on the train and open it with a combination of numbers while Skyfall’s Bond girl, Severine, helps the player complete the mission. Heineken put its ‘man of the world’ into a situation where he has to act like a double-0 spy. Players perceive this while playing the game. They feel just as masculine, brave, and extraordinary as Heineken’s ‘man of the world’. The campaign brings the male consumer and the brand closer to each other by providing players the experience of being a special agent.

Photo Credits: felixtriller

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The success of a campaign depends on how much it can increase consumers’ level of engagement. One way to enhance engagement is to involve the consumers in something important for them; something they can identify themselves with. As the official sponsor of the 2012 Olympic Games, Adidas did this with the aim of showcasing British talents and encouraging

2Engagement: Adidas

UK consumers to ’Take the Stage’ in 2012. The whole campaign was based on the concept of talent – professional athletes promote the newest collection of Adidas and brand ambassadors offer exclusive prizes for winners of a competition. Competitors upload demonstrations of their talent on Adidas’ website, ask their friends to vote for it, and whoever gets the highest number of

votes is the winner.The playful and competitive experience increased the level of consumer engagement because it excited people to participate and ’take the stage’.


Sport brands often support particular sports and events as sponsors with the aim of reaching a wider audience. Some brands go even further by also organizing these events. The aim is to create a community and give its members the feeling of being in the same club by adding a new layer to the sport - the layer of social interaction. Nike and running are very obvious examples but brands can take up less popular sports and attract more players by supporting events. CrossFit has been around for years but when it partnered with Reebok last year,

3Social Interaction: CrossFit

the popularity of CrossFit increased. In the brand’s latest ad, helicopters carry huge containers to different cities around the world. By opening the containers people enter the world of CrossFit. CrossFit and Reebok established ’CrossFit boxes’ in cities around the world. CrossFit trainers provide exercise classes and coaching to people and organise competitions that involve thousands of players. By licensing its name to CrossFit, Reebok identifies itself with the community of CrossFit players who share the same values and work for the

same goal: a healthy and fit life. Reebok facilitated the creation of a community that provides players the opportunity to exercise, compete with others, and socialise with people who they have something in common with.

Nike has always been very effective at energizing individuals and communities. With its latest ‘Game On, World’ campaign the brand is trying to reach more people than ever. The campaign launched with two films that turn the world into a virtual playground with athletes running and jumping amongst obstacles just like Super Mario. The brand calls everybody for a world-wide competition where performance is measured by NikeFuel, a universal currency. Players have missions where they compete against other players and professional athletes. The most active player is the winner. Nike added a social element to the competition. It encouraged athletes to share their performances with friends and the rest of the Nike+ community on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The intention was to inspire and motivate players, ensure a growing number of users, and generate greater word-of-mouth. 4Sharing: Nike


a dog squeezing between family members’ legs. The first-person perspective makes one feel as if one is a part of that particular scene. IKEA’s marketing specialists created a fun environment to educate players about their products. They created a playful experience to turn the players into consumers by offering them the possibility to ’try’ and imagine using the product in a home-like environment and learn about it at the same time.

The more you know something, the more you like it. A successful marketing strategy can be based on this universally accepted truth. IKEA successfully applied this strategy in its ‘Kitchen View’ campaign: It gave consumers as much information as possible while providing them with a playful experience. Viewers can explore IKEA kitchens and learn about the products from the view of different family members: a grandmother’s birthday , a young couple dancing, or even

5Learning: IKEA

Photo Credit: Powi

References“There is no other true test of fitness.” Crossfit

Games.

Gordon, Kyana. “Nike turns the World into a Real Life

Version of Super Mario Bros..” pfsk.com, 02 Jul 2012.

“Heineken Launches TV and Digital Campaign for

Skyfall.” comingsoon.net, 21 Sep 2012.

Fera, Rae Ann. “James Bond and Heineken want

you to ‘Crack the Case’”.” fastcocreate.com, 21

Sept 2012.

Follett, Jonathan. “Engaging User Creativity: The

Playful Experience.” Uxmatters, 17 Dec 2007.