What We Can Learn From The Cannes Lion Winners in Gaming (Bronze part 1 of 2)

This is the first in a multi-part series where I will work my way up from Bronze to Gold examining the best creative work in gaming. There are a lot of winners, especially in Bronze, so to be able to give each piece of work its' due diligence I am breaking it down into smaller chunks.

Now a little disclaimer before I get started. I am not here to judge the work. Cannes has excellent judges and they have done that wonderfully. We are here to learn from the awarded work in the context of marketing to gamers.

For each case I will share a brief synopsis, and what I found to be the single most important lesson I learned from each piece. Of course there are many lessons, especially as we get to the more awarded work, but I'll be focusing on one per case.

The Case Study

The Lesson

Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) recognised the problem of excessive gaming among players. Driven by the need to foster a safe and healthy gaming environment, the Game Responsibly campaign tackles the problem of obsessive gaming in a light-hearted manner.

I can see why this idea was awarded. It is a simple and easy-to-understand joke for the judges, and the casting and craft of the film is good.

On first glance, I didn't feel this was an ad that really spoke to gamers. But then I remembered, it shouldn't. I do think the simple humour and approach is a really good way to connect with the family of gamers. It is probably an accurate metaphor for how they feel about someone they love constantly gaming, or talking about gaming.

And I realised my own initial misjudgement of the ad, was my greatest opportunity to learn. Just because I saw an ad about gaming, I assumed it should be speaking to gamers.

The reality is, gaming has become such a big part of society it impacts non-gamers as well - and there may be instances that your work needs to speak to a mainstream audience, so always keep them in mind.

The Case Study

The Lesson

The purpose of this blog, and my mission, is to connect brands to gaming culture and explore how gaming has an impact on culture.

However, that doesn't mean it doesn't go both ways. Culture also has a profound impact on gaming and gaming audiences. Especially in markets where culture is a core to their being. And there are very few places in the world where culture has less impact on society than in Japan.

In this particular case, Playstation is a legacy brand in Japan and introducing a new platform would be incredibly challenging - so rather than enter through gaming culture, which is very established, the team chose to use the powerful culture of J-POP Playful to express the new brand.

They collaborated to launch a new song and music video with Kenshi Yonezu, an experimental artist whose tracks push boundaries and shape culture. He’s also a gamer, who believes gaming informs his creative process.

Together, they launched “POP SONG” - which serves as both the music video for Yonezu's new song, as well as the launch film for the new brand.  It was truly a demonstration of the impact of connecting using culture - as the campaign made the cover of a lifestyle magazine and was introduced in a feature story on how PlayStation transcends cultures.

The Case Study

The Lesson

One thing I have discussed is how the gaming audience is changing. But one thing that always stays the same, is authenticity is a key to forming connections.

And I'll admit, I was not hot on this idea for the first 30 seconds of the film or so. I thought it was CRINGE to have Moms in video games.

That was until they admitted that it was super cringe, and flipped the script to explain how that was the strength of the idea. You see, their mission was simple. To be so cringe that they would embarrass gamers into caring about gut health.

It is cringe for your Mom to appear on your stream in the background nagging you about diet. It is next-level cringe for your Mom to appear, in avatar form, in your game, on stream, in front of millions to remind you to eat your vegetables.

And this admission and honesty about who the brand was - not trying to be a cool gaming brand, but being an annoying Mom, actually worked.

The Case Study

The Lesson

It is a pretty simple leap to be made. Frank's Red Hot Sauce and lava. Both hot. Both red. Only one is tasty.

But rather than just make that connection and own the floor is lava game modes in Fortnite, Frank's Red Hot decided to take it a step further and build their own Floor is Flava island, a chicken-wing shaped island which would slowly get drenched in spicy hot sauce.

The twist? They encouraged players to embrace the Flava - and emote their favourite dances while being drowned in Frank's Red Hot. Not my cup of tea, but Fortnite players? They are a weird bunch and they dove right in.

With influencers and streamers taking the lead, this idea made it fun to die - which is never the case in video games. So while I wasn't in love with this idea, I definitely felt there was a strong lesson to be taken from it and a keen insight into the gaming audience.

And also side lesson: sometimes a fun way to connect a game back to your product is a good idea. In thise case, lava.

The Case Study

The Lesson

Okay first up I want to say it - I am going to do a full breakdown of this idea in another blog post in the future because I believe this is an amazing piece of work and it deserved better than a Bronze. No shade to the judges but come on - it's brilliant!

Now let's get into what we can learn from this idea. Apart from it being about cats, and about being an emotional subject matter - one thing I believe that was done very well is that this idea brings ACTUAL value to the game.

Stray, the game, gets more fun because of this idea. You get more variety of cats to play with, and not only that but they represent REAL WORLD cats who need a home! It suddenly makes the experience of playing Stray a thousand times more powerful!

And to no surprise at all, the gaming and streaming community went crazy with this idea, sharing, chatting and streaming about it all over the internet. They became amazing ambassadors for the programme. It was also amazing to see the developer step in and help as well, I assume because there are strong shared values between the three parties who came together to make this happen.

The Case Study

The Lesson

VMLYR Kentucky and Wendy's quickly identified that brands were struggling to really get into Fortnite.  Oh sure they advertised ABOUT Fortnite. But they weren't part of Fortnite culture.

The new game mode Food Fight featured freezers that contained the meat. But here lies the twist. Wendy's doesn't believe in frozen meat.

So rather than just do a campaign about it, Wendy's turned on their inner gamer and decided to fight for their brand belief. And wreck every single meat freezer in Fortnite.

For 9 hours straight, you could tune in to Wendy's on twitch and watch them smashing up freezers. It was insane.

This level of commitment? You better believe that gamers trusted that Wendy's was all about no frozen meat after that.

It is such a powerful lesson. If you believe in what your brand stands for, commit to it. Go all in. And eventually? People will believe in it too.

That wraps up the first part of this series - there will be 3 more to come, with the second half of the bronze winners, then the silver and finally the gold winners.

It is incredibly educational for me, hopefully some others out there learn from this series as well!