By Kel Fabie
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this that a good chunk of the people who make up 14:59 Digital Solutions love video games. Most of us grew up on them, and there’s so much about the medium that captivates our imaginations. Chief amongst those is the sheer level of marketing that goes behind each and every game release, whether it be one of the holiday-season AAA games everyone’s been waiting for, or a Kickstarter-backed project that goes viral through sheer word of mouth and hype.
Just like any industry, there are certain challenges unique to video games that marketing has to consider, but for the most part, they always went hand-in-hand since the very beginning. And yes, while we are using marketing as a whole to make the point, that’s only because video games existed well before digital marketing did, so some of the best examples of synergy between the two happened during the days of classic marketing. Of course, now that digital is a thing, you can’t expect to market a video game without it, either.
In any case, let’s look back on yesteryear and find some amazing examples of video game marketing done right.
3. Hype Done Right: The Success Story of Street Fighter 6
Let’s talk about the most recent marketing success story in Capcom’s latest installment to its landmark Street Fighter franchise. With a cool million copies of the game sold in just its first 5 days on the market, Street Fighter 6 is on track to break and set a few new records if the good press about the game keeps up. True, Street Fighter 5 sold 7.2 million copies during its lifetime while Street Fighter 4 literally brought back the fighting game genre to life and hit 9.8 million copies during its time in the sun. Even with those staggering numbers, the optimism surrounding SF6 is what makes people hopeful that this latest game is going to set a new standard for fighting games.
You know where they started getting things right? By doing that old standby of anyone who’s been doing marketing long enough: listening to feedback. Street Fighter V was notorious for a barebones launch that turned off all but the most hardcore of fans, aka the competitive Street Fighter players who actually join tournaments. Their hype started months ahead of time, with a lot of focus on making sure the single-player experience isn’t going to be a slog this time around. With a World Tour Mode that lets you create your own Street Fighter character from the ground up and take them on an RPG-like adventure, you not only get to play the game at your own pace, you even slowly get taught the fundamentals of the genre itself.
Couple this with a very good mix of old, new, and returning characters at launch, with pretty much every playstyle properly represented, great preview videos, reaching out to community leaders and influencers, and Capcom ticked all the right boxes to ensure that their target market knew Street Fighter 6 was going to be big. How big? Big enough to offer a $1M cash prize to whoever wins the Capcom Cup. That’s prize support on the level of the big names in esports, which is Capcom’s way of claiming their stake in that pantheon.
Social listening. Influencer marketing. Crisis management. Open communication. Epic visuals, a tagline that says it all (“Welcome to a new era!”). These are just some of the components to creating a successful marketing campaign. Just throw in a good game at the end of it, and it’s next to impossible for a campaign of this magnitude to fail.
2. Organic And Beefy: How Wendy’s Took Over Fortnite
Everyone knows how successful Fortnite is, so this game needs no introduction. 250 million active players? Billions in revenue? It’s a juggernaut, is what it is.
When Fortnite introduced a new game mode called “Food Fight” to the game, it seemed like a no-brainer for brands to jump aboard Team Pizza or Team Burger. Wendy’s had other ideas, though, once it took one look at the in-game restaurant representing burgers: Durr Burger. You see, unlike Wendy’s, who prides itself in serving their meat fresh and hot off the grill, Durr Burger liked to keep its meat in *gasp* freezers. Dun dun dunnnnnn!
So what did Wendy’s do? Why, not only did it join the game, it sided with Team Pizza, with the specific objective of destroying as many freezers as it possibly can while at it. Suddenly, the brand became an active participant in arguably the most popular game in the world, and the attention it got resulted in a 119% spike in mentions of Wendy’s on social media, and 1.5M minutes viewed on Twitch. These staggering numbers came from a brand capitalizing on something that was completely out of its control. It’s not like Wendy’s and Fortnite planned any of this.
In today’s cynical world where we are now more than ever aware of how brands try to reach out to people, Wendy’s found a way to blur that line more than ever. It’s the kind of brilliant marketing that comes from being quick on the draw, attentive to current trends, and a willingness to try things that others simply might have never considered before. Any digital marketing outfit worth its salt always keeps that in mind when they try to find a way to bridge the gap between brands and its customers, and this stellar example of capitalizing on an opportunity when it presents itself shows how video games and marketing can definitely go together in more ways than one.
1. Their Game, Their Rules: How Pepsiman Broke The Internet
So we’ve seen video games market themselves. We’ve seen brands use a video game to market itself, and in that particular case, in a standout way that goes beyond just brand placement, in-game advertising, or brand sponsorship. But have you seen some interesting examples where brands created video games putting their brand front and center? Let’s talk about one of the most bizarre yet shockingly popular examples right now.
Without the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to label Pepsiman as a lazy cash-in, or be cynical about it. After all, it’s pretty much a brand mascot that got its own video game and a few ads. And yes, the game didn’t sell well, according to its makers. But the reason we’re talking about it today instead of other similar branded video games like Burger King’s 2006 award-winning game is simple: in 2023, Pepsiman is fondly remembered, while Burger King’s accolades, as well-deserved as they are, stay firmly in the marketing industry.
In short, Pepsiman has transcended marketing and video games. You got that right: this bizarre example of marketing that only Japan could possibly have come up with is now an internet meme, making it more popular now than at its peak during its actual run. It doesn’t hurt that the game itself, despite being made on a low budget, is actually fun and unintentionally hilarious. Or, at least, we think it’s all unintentional.
For a game that was never actually officially released outside of Japan, Pepsiman has entered the meme culture in a way that anyone involved with it could have never dreamed of. Considering the game was made in 1999, nobody involved might have even known what a meme is, in the first place. Yes, opinions on Pepsiman can swing wildly from person to person, but it cannot be denied that it has made a cultural impact that goes far beyond itself.
No matter how you slice it, that’s the kind of marketing anyone would be proud to accomplish.
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