Traditional media are under pressure. Modern marketing strategies therefore have an online and interactive component. Game technology creates new opportunities for brand positioning:

• Experience marketing becomes scalable with virtual environments;
• The target audience actively engages with the brand;
• Returning users create loyalty and improved brand visibility.
• The image of entertainment and relaxation associated with 3D games invokes the right mindset for branding.

Brand games

We believe that brand games can be extremely effective. However, there is one catch: they only hit the sweet spot when they translate the core values of a product or brand into the gameplay mechanics. If this is not the case, the result could be another Pac-man clone with advertising on top (this is why we don’t like the term “advergaming”). Like any other marketing medium, the goals and message needs to be carefully tuned to the intended audience.

A good brand game clearly represents the company and its values, both in gameplay and in the game setting. This consistency needs to be the focus of the game design and implementation. As the game is an integrated part of a bigger picture, the campaign design needs to take the brand game into account from the very first concepts.

City marketing

With architectural visualizations becoming a commodity, the time is right to leverage this medium from information-supplier to an interactive experience. As cities compete for the creative class and specific industries, city marketing becomes ever more important. By using interactive visualizations, the unique aspects of a city, urban region or business cluster are profiled and communicated.

Visualizations have evolved from static images to full-scale interactive experiences. Clusters like the Leiden Bio Science Park and the Science Park Amsterdam use these interactive applications as virtual scale models. Enhanced with critical information such as company clusters and infrastructure highlights, the applications have been well received by stakeholders. They are given away on USB sticks, presented at trade shows and provide an excellent way to enhance presentations and face-to-face discussions on the area.

The city of Dordrecht has taken it a step further by recreating the past of a historically important town square. A monastery from the year 1500 has been virtually recreated with the help of specialists and the city archives. Using this application, the city of Dordrecht is presented from a rich historical perspective.

If you would like to learn more about our approach to marketing applications, please let us know!