This document provides a summary of a discussion on branding and games between industry experts. It discusses: - The evolution of games advertising and how brands have increasingly integrated into games over time. - Different ways people play games and how brands can tap into various motivations. - Examples of successful branded gaming campaigns like those for Philips, Lily Allen, Comic Relief, and Vimto. - Research on the McDonald's FarmVille promotion, finding mostly positive feedback but some execution issues around rewards and availability. - Conclusions that to plan an effective in-game campaign, brands should understand the game, provide a significant reward or benefit, and understand the medium.

2. Mark Terry Creative Director brand-e

6. Steve Mullins Content Director brand-e

7. the games brands play

8. old brands, old games

9. the games In-game advertising Billboards Hoardings Sportswear Branded gaming Online games Online and mobile apps Viral gaming ARGs Clue-solving Product placement Social games Video games

10. the metrics

11. facebooking

12. apps Downloads: 12.5 million Playtime: 1.5 million hours Global play-off: 300,000 players in 80 countries

13. games on

14. i am playr

15. roles brands play I Am Playr Nike augments gaming experience Nike rewards the victor Nike enhances player status Other games Part of the entertainment Promotional rewards Aids group activity Fosters communications Enables players to drive fast cars eg, role of brands eg enabler, promo, enhance expce, entertmt

16. game/brand analysis ntertain ngage mpower xcel

17. marketing plays It’s about building brand advocacy So, how different are games from any other kind of branded comms?

23. In the ever-evolving world of digital advertising and marketing, brands who work with Matmi achieve astonishing results. We engage brands and buyers in successful, loyal relationships by creating pioneering online, social and mobile experiences. That’s why many companies – including some of the world’s leading brands - have already joined us and grown in a place we call the Matmisphere. We’d love to meet you there.

24. Branded Entertainment vs Traditional Advertising

26. TV advertising is a great excuse to have a break and a cup of tea! TV advertising is one way (usually, hurry up IPTV) Very difficult to track results Costly Harder to target Print advertising is in massive decline (for good reasons) The captive audience is engaging with other forms of media Even if users are watching TV they are often Media-stacking No instant purchase of product available Traditional

27. Internet Advertising is Huge Internet Advertising can be targeted Great conversion tracking Wonderful Click thru rates Better ROI Greater Range Up-dateable adverts on the fly Allows experimentation Users can click thru to purchase Positive experience and engagement builds loyalty Adverts can be engaging and users will allow spread

28. Advergaming is one of the fastest growing areas of the Internet. Why?

31. Philips wanted to promote their Sonicare Kids Toothbrush to kids and their parents in the UK and Germany.

33. Total visits 13.5 million Average view time 7 minutes Total clicks 216,000

35. Lily Allen already had a strong online presence and a reputation for cutting edge digital marketing. The campaign to promote the artists’ second album “It’s Not Me, It’s You” with Parlophone set some challenging objectives:

37. To reach a new and relevant audience for Lily Allen (ie -not listening to radio or watching TV).

38. To upsell Lily Allen content, drive physical sales and pre-orders.

40. Over a million plays per month from 70+ countries worldwide Average dwell time of 4.37 minutes Over 6.5 million plays 300,000 click thrus Subsequent analysis by Parlophone showed a direct correlation between penetration rates for the game per head of population, with the chart position of the single and album in that country.

41. The client’s opinion "Escape the Fear is the promo video of the digital age. It delivers engagement, interaction, loyalty and sales opportunities on a new level for our artists. The game has delivered tens of thousands of click-thrus, pre-orders and downloads, and even features on the album CD itself. The results speak for themselves – we’re absolutely delighted with this launch." Dan Duncombe, Digital Director, Parlophone/EMI

43. In February 2007, Comic Relief issued its “Digital Challenge” to any person or organisation to help it "Spread the most red online" as part of its fund raising efforts.

44. We created a branded viral advergame carrying the “Water is life” message in a subtle but powerful way. Players help villagers reconnect water pipes for themselves, their animals and crops after the pipes have been attacked by hyenas.

46. The results were stunning: No.1 on the worldwide viral chart on the eve of Red Nose Day 2007 2 weeks after release, the worldwide viral chart confirmed that “Let It Flow” had become the fastest growing viral game it had ever tracked 45 Million plays 10% Click thru to Comic Relief site "Let It Flow" never left the worldwide Top 20 online games and was No.1 five times in total.

48. Virtual band, Gorillaz, are in their element online so it seemed only right to promote their 2010 album, Plastic Beach, in cyberspace too.Our brief was to bring Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach album to life online and on mobile, in 2D and 3D, free-to-play and pay-to-play, using concepts based on soundtracks from the album. Nothing too complicated then!

50. 2 million plays of Chapters 1 & 2 in the first six months after launch An average dwell time of 6.9 minutes equates to 26 years’ worth of brand exposure for the band worldwide 200,000 Click thru’s Thousands of purchases of the iPhone and iPad app

51. “This campaign was a challenging brief for everyone involved because like Lily Allen before them, the Gorillaz are digital innovators. We had to have partners on board with one foot in the future. Matmi’s experience, experimental attitude and their working relationship with Apple for the iPad release were critical. If you’re looking for ground-breaking digital marketing with ground-breaking results, look no further.” Dan Duncombe, Vice President, Digital, EMI Music

53. Vimto’s new UK website was part of an ambitious £5 million rebrand for the 101 year old soft drink in 2009. Its overall objective was to change perceptions of the brand in the teen-to-early-30s age group, and drive up sales.The central creative elements of the campaign are the Seriously Mixed Up Fruit – a quirky trio of characters based on the fruit contents of the drink. Raspberry, Grape and Blackcurrant will do anything to get “mushed” into Vimto.

56. Independent research showed that the digital elements of Vimto’s 2009 re-brand campaign had the highest cut-through of any media, delivered the highest return on investment and created the highest levels of engagement (talkability factor and pass-on rate).

57. “Vimto and Matmi are very compatible brands; quirky, fun and full of surprises. It’s no wonder that we’ve never been short of ideas – only the time we need to do them!“Our rebrand in 2009 sent sales through the roof – almost double our targets. Although the new creative concept had most exposure through traditional advertising, it was the digital elements which had the most appeal to our teenage audience.“Matmi really has its finger on the pulse when it comes to digital engagement and understanding the audience. On the new website, teenagers get to do things that their parents would tell them off for, for example. That’s brilliant!When you visit the new site, you don’t just look at it and read lots of text; you listen, play, have fun, get your mates involved and get a full-on Vimto experience. This is what’s created the ‘talkability’ factor in the campaign’s results, and Matmi should be very proud of that. Emma Hunt, Senior Brand Manager, Vimto Soft Drinks

60. EVOLUTION OF GAMING AND HOW to PLAY THE GAME Jeff Pabst, Microsoft Head of Ad Planning and Strategy, IEB 58 1

61. The Evolution of Games Advertising… Dr Pepper 1st Branded I Phone Game 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 $1 billion In 2014* Burger King 1st Branded Xbox Game $299million* 1st Adver-game Pepsi Invaders Atari 2600 USD $$ in Millions $189million* 1st in-game Ad GTA III 1st CD-ROM Chexquest ..... ..... 1983 1993 1995……… 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Beyond *Source: Branded Entertainment Market Forecast 2007-2012, PQ media, Screen Digest 2010

62. Participative Branded Entertainment Content choice creates breaking point… Everything is available everywhere. Now what? Internet generation demands participation.. There is no one way street at any stage of the ecosystem

63. Gamification of everything

64. How do people Play? Simplicity & Immediacy Older females Older males Social Fun Thrilling Fun Depth & Involvement Narrative Fun Creative Fun Younger males Younger females Creativity and life interest Fantasy and Escapism

65. Games allow brands to energize consumers and spark the viral effect... Audience Reach Engagement Discoverability Relevancy Innovation

66. Flora Campaign

68. 66 Brands in Social GamesWhat the gamers saySocial Media Research: Farmville & McDonalds

69. Social gaming has become HUGE… At its peak FarmVille had nearly 84 million monthly active users… …last month CityVillepeaked at around 101 million users

70. Audiences this big are attractive to advertisers We wanted to look into this fast growing area…

71. The Game and the Brand One of the biggest social games in the world One of the biggest brands in the world The collaboration between the two seemed ideal for researching the effects of branding on social gaming

72. How FarmVille worksFarmville is a real time farm simulation game available as an app on Facebook.Players manage a virtual farm, ploughing land, planting growing and harvesting crops, tress and bushes and raising livestock. This is my farm!

73. The McDonalds’ McCafe campaignThe McDonalds’ McCafe campaign ran for just one day on the 6th October 2010Campaign only ran in the US and Canada although it was announced globallyUsers could- visit the McDonalds farm- receive virtual McCafe coffee enabling them to farm at double the normal speed- get a McDonalds branded hot air balloon to decorate their farm

74. The McDonalds farm

75. Method - Buzz researchAhead of carrying out more quantifiable research in this area, we conducted some initial social media analysis of the McDonalds promotion within Farmville to gauge some of the issues of branding within social games Using Buzz research we undertook a social web-search to assess what gamers were saying online about the promotion. This procedure looks for mentions of Farmville associated with either McDonalds or McCafe between 1st – 10th OctoberThis is not representative, but it does produce some interesting initial findingsThree search terms were used:“Farmville AND McDonalds”“Farmville AND McCafe”“Zynga AND McDonalds”Harvesting buzz: We searched Message boards, Social Network sites (i.e. Facebook), Blogs, Microblogs, Video/ photo sharing sites etc. using an auto discovery spider

76. Volume of resultsThe search found 1,696 posts in total with an average of 170 posts a day Campaign day Post campaign buzz for a further 4 days Anticipation buzz for 5 days prior to campaign Conversation started on Facebook, which peaked on the 3rd and again on the 7th, but was overtaken by the large volume of posts on message boards and forums

77. The buzz begins…On the 5th October, the Farmville welcome screen was changed to include the McDonalds branding This lead to a thread of 394 posts on the Zynga Community Forums discussing and trying to predict what the offer would be – a promising start

78. What were they saying? The audience were ‘up for it’ butinitial discussions on fan blogs suggested it was not entirely clear to many how they were supposed to engage with the McDonalds contentSome even mention visiting branches and calling customer services about the promotion

79. Some execution issuesThe campaign fell short of some expectations as not perceived as rewarding enoughThe hot air balloon was just ornamental whilst many experienced FarmVille users ‘lock’ their farmer within scenery, making a speed power-up unnecessary

80. Also, frustration from non US gamers People outside the USA and Canada were disappointed - they had seen the flash screen but did not have access to the promotion

81. Despite this there were no comments rejecting the idea of brands appearing within FarmVilleIssues were down to - The creative execution- Uncertainty of what to do- Lack of reward- The promotion not being available to them…so a significant proportion of the negative comments came about because players were in fact so keen to engageZynga bore the brunt of criticism rather than McDonalds

82. There was also a lot of positive buzz In fact, looking at all responses there was more positive feedback than negative The vast majority of buzz was neutral – generally people who comment online are generally those with strong opinions one way or the other so neutral buzz is considered to be a sign of a healthy campaign

83. The positive buzz Centred around a good ‘fit’ and positivity about the balloon and buildings

84. Analysis of emotion of buzz This measure scores posts on the presence of words, which are categorised into 16 emotions: The measure to push Words denoting “achieve” and “social” are strongly associated – we feel that when a brand gives a sense of achievement within the game, the campaign really starts to work for that brand

85. Conclusions - how to plan your in-game campaign Having conducted this initial exploratory look at brands within social gamers, we are looking to quantify the impact on participating brands using more traditional/ representative researchHowever at this stage we would offer the following advice if you’re planning a campaign: 1. Play the game… live it… understand it… get into it! 2. If possible link the brand with a real and significant benefit, reward or achievement – this will add enormous perceived value to the brand3. As with any ad campaign, understand the medium Final thought: Branding in games is powerful. It’s even more powerful when done properly

87. Steve Mullins, brand-e (Moderator) Paul Armstrong, Mindshare Jeff Coghlan, Matmi Gilles Storme, RockYou Jeff Pabst, Microsoft Max Willey, BDRC Continental Margaret Robertson, Hide&Seek