Campaigns to games

Jonathan Salem Baskin is the author of a book called Branding Only Works on Cattle. I havent read the book yet, but Ive checked the foreword and Jonathans blog, and Im particularly fascinated by what Jonathan says about games and branding. Games, and namely video games, are addictive. Just look at the Nintendo Wii craze, or Sony Playstation before that, and all successful video games, consoles and computer games since the 1970s. People give games lots and lots of their time over long stretches. They keep coming back to them, ignoring several other, more important influences in their lives. Marketers have known this for long, and you can find mainstream consumer products (and a certain presidential candidates campaign ads) placed in video games. Agencies are telling their corporate clients that brands need to do things with games. But Jonathan thinks that instead of brands doing things with games, games need to do things to brands. We shouldnt twist games to support our old ideas about brands, and have brands use game tactics. Instead, brand (and business) strategies should get configured like games, says Jonathan. Marketers mistakenly see games as a lowest-common-denominator channel, instead of realizing that games are not channels at all, but rather places, like social media, only with a purpose, he continues. Games are models of places where people live, worlds that have rules, roles, expected behaviors, and even dimensions of time. Perhaps most important, video games are places where people go to do things. Games are built upon creative ideas, but they’re experienced with behavior, says Jonathan. I cant think of any close examples of that yet. Cant say that Ive seen any brand designed like a game. But I find the idea really thrilling. And I noticed this upcoming webinar, organized by Rosenfeld Media and given by John Ferrara, on extending game design to business applications. Its not exactly the same as what Jonathan Salem Baskin writes about, but nevertheless Ill sign up for it. If anybody has examples of brands like games, please comment. I first thought of the old Nokia Game and other ARGs, but those are not quite the thing. Photo credit: David Farrant (Creative Commons)