My presentation for DIGRA 2018 - Playing with a brand: the Brazilian McDonald's paper tray case

I want to share my expanded abstract for DIGRA conference 2018. I'll be in Turin in the next week for the event. =)

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Playing with a brand: the Brazilian McDonald's paper tray case

Keywords:
McDonald’s, board game, Facebook bot, paper tray, marketing

Taking communication, marketing and entertainment as leading and intertwining landmarks of contemporary culture, this paper discusses an advertising piece from Brazilian McDonald’s restaurants, which uses a gaming interface to cast a branding message to its consumers. Acknowledging the prominence of digital networks in today’s mediapolis (Silverstone 2006), where mass self communication (Castells 2009) poses new challenges to understanding current modes of sociability and consumption, our focus will be directed to one promotional board game presented in the paper used to protect the food tray in McDonald’s Brazilian restaurants. Created by the Brazilian advertising agency DPZ&T and launched in October 2017, the game uses a “race to the end” mechanic and could be played from one to four players using a Facebook bot.


Figure 1: McDonald’s promotional paper tray using a board game with a Facebook bot interaction.

To play the game, one player must scan the special code using the app “Facebook Messenger” in their smartphone. The code starts a special bot that sends quizzes, enigmas, and trivia questions about McDonald’s to the players. Each correct answer allows players to advance their pawn in the trail. The player who wins the race receives one special chance to earn a prize (pack of French fries, ice cream etc.) from McDonald’s.

In the first part of the presentation, following the thoughts of Fullerton et al. (2008 15-16), we analyze the game design process for a promotional game. Based on information provided by the agency, we discuss the conceptual stage and the necessity to align gameplay with the marketing message; we also discuss how a prototype is created in this case, and how the beta test sessions occurred. In the end, we present technical information about how the final version is implemented with the interface between the board game (in the paper tray) and the Facebook bot (in the smartphone).

In the second part of the presentation, we highlight the strategic use of entertainment languages by companies in their marketing campaigns in the contemporary scenario, and how social media and mobile devices contribute to accelerate the process in this ecosystem. Following the idea that the quotidian is filled with playgrounds (Bogost 2016) where we can access entertainment anytime/anywhere, we discuss how companies like McDonald’s are managing these aspects to promote brand and sell products.

In conclusion, we present data and results from the McDonald’s paper tray board game. Since the game uses a digital interface, it is possible to collect data from the players, geo-locating information and inserting questions about the brand to test how players know about the company. We discuss how these data collected can be used in future campaigns or new promotional actions using games.

BIO: Vicente Martin Mastrocola, PhD. works as a graduation level teacher at ESPM São Paulo (Brazil); Vicente also works as a game designer, developing games for mobile platforms and analogical board games/card games. In the first semester of 2016, he studied at Paneurópska vysoká škola (Paneuropean University) in Bratislava (Slovakia) as part of his doctorate research.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, E.; Rollings, A. (2009). Fundamentals of game design. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Bogost, I. (2016). Play anything: the pleasure of limits, the uses of boredom, & the secret of games. New York: Basic Books.
Bogost, I. (2010). Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford Press.
Fullerton, T., et al. (2008). Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
Silverstone, R. (2006). Media and Morality: on the rise of the mediapolis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

#GoGamers

International Academic Conference on Management, Economics and Marketing in Budapest 2017, Hungary (IAC-MEM 2017 in Budapest)

Last week I was in Budapest to attend the International Academic Conference on Management, Economics and Marketing. The event was great! Full of good content and awesome people. This conference is very important to me because it's the first event that I attended as a PhD (Yeah! Finished my doctorate one month ago!).



I had the opportunity to present the article "Advergames: games as marketing tools". Below, I want to share the PDF file with some slides from the presentation.



You can download the full article by clicking here.

One more international achievement unlocked. =)

#GoGamers

Let's give the floor to specialists in advergames

I selected four experts from the gaming field and asked each one the following question: what are three essential characteristics for an effective advergame? Below, I present and discuss the answers:



Fabio Tola, Brazilian elementary school teacher and specialist in the use of games for education, says that one advergame 1) must reach the target audience; 2) convey the branding/product message effectively; 3) become viral – this last item is very important to quickly expand the marketing message to the social media environment.

For Guilherme Camargo, CEO of the Brazilian gaming studio Sioux, the three essential characteristics for an effective advergame are: 1) have a well-defined purpose aligned to the brand, product or service (it seems obvious but, often, an advergame is detached from the core concept of a campaign); 2) know your target audience to match the style, mechanics and other characteristics of the games; 3) be fun – it is fundamental to create something that strengthens engagement through entertainment languages.

Mauro Berimbau, Brazilian high school teacher and specialist in advergames ponders that 1) in this modality of games, is elementary to send a clear marketing message; 2) to observe the historical socio-cultural aspects of the players; 3) to study the player's interpretations and responses to the system. From these opinions, we can ponder a lot before an advergaming project or an analysis of an advergame. We will discuss these ideas in the final topic of our article.

Laura Herrewijn, guest Professor at University of Antwerp, says that 1) it is important to be sure that your audience will have fun, to create an original game in which you integrate your brand message in a central, prominent way; 2) it’s necessary to focus on the moments where the player has no attention left to perceive the brand messaging; 3) you need to make sure that the behavior you want to promote (e.g. visiting a website, buying a product) is made as easily as possible (e.g. to include a very visible link/ a coupon, etc.).

#GoGamers

Video Game Cultures & The Future of Entertainment Conference (Oxford – July 2014)

Last week I was in Oxford (UK) at the Mansfield College for the “Video Game Cultures & The Future of Entertainment Conference”. The event is part of the Oxford’s University inter-disciplinary program, a global network for dynamic research and publishing. There were 3 days of full immersion inside the gaming research universe with excellent content presented by people from 15 different countries.

On the first day, we had a very interesting discussion with René Schalleger about how game designers create interactive experiences that let players explore complex issues of identity, free will and agency. Another highlight from day 1 was Teros Pasanen’s presentation about the Hobbesian state of nature in the game DayZ.



The second day was intense and focused on mobile gaming, gender in video games, serious games, educational games and game design.

On the third day, I presented my paper “Health, consumption and entertainment: the Nike brand embodied as a playful experience” that I wrote with my friend Marcelo Vasconcellos (click here to download).

This kind of event is perfect for networking and to improve our researches. For more information and the complete conference’s content access the official site of inter-disciplinary.net by clicking here.

Another good badge for my character’s sheet. =)

Go gamers!

Article: Brazilian Gaming Market

Craving to disseminate information about the Brazilian gaming market, my friend Mauro Berimbau and I wrote a brief article explaining some peculiarities of this environment with many relevant research data. We want to share our feelings with you.



Click here to download the PDF. We are waiting for your opinions!

Beer + arcade = Beercade

The McKinney Ten Percent, the ad agency's incubator that encourages all employees to devote 10% of their time to focus on new applications of creativity and technology unrelated to current client business, has found a way to breathe new life into both beer tasting and arcade gaming. The agency created the first-ever beer-dispensing arcade game for Big Boss Beer brand, that puts two players against each other in a simple fighting game, developed with Adobe Flash technology.



Players choose one of five characters, each one representing one kind of beer from Big Boss Brewing Company. The fight begins and the winner receives a glass full of beer from the arcade machine. Check the video case below:



This kind of advertising action is called advergame. Advergame means "advertise" + "game". It’s a strategy for marketing communication that uses mainly electronic games to advertise brands and products. That includes a large range that goes from games that are developed specifically for advertising purposes, to common games that have ads in its interfaces.

It’s always good to see gaming language hybridizing with other areas of knowledge, like advertising in this case. If you like this subject I strongly recommend this site (link here).

Advergaming with Doritos

Doritos launched a few years ago one fictitious Hollywood studio named Snack Strong Productions. The main idea of the studio is to promote the brand with some ludic interfaces like Internet games, interactive stories on YouTube, video games and viral campaigns.

A successful case of the fictitious studio is the game named Doritos Crash Course (Wanako Games, 2010). The game is a 2.5D side scrolling plat-forming advergame developed for the Xbox 360's Live Arcade service. It is free for download and has an awesome and intuitive interface.

Crash Course has two good features to highlight: first of all, the game is an experience sponsored by Doritos and the brand appears in the beginning of each stage. The second important feature is the in-game advertising possibility inside some floating outdoors in the game interface. As you can see in the image below, the outdoor is displaying an ad for Crash Course 2 (the second game of the franchise) and it supports many kinds of advertising.



The social strategy is very important here and players with an Xbox Live membership may compare records with friends or play head-to-head against online opponents.

Doritos is investing heavily in business strategies with entertainment. Definitely, the brand seems to have understood how to adapt itself to the ludic context that permeates our contemporary world.

A little bit of ADVERGAMES

Advergame is "advertise" + "game". It´s a kind of strategy for marketing communication that uses games, mainly electronic, to advertise brands and products. That includes a large range that goes from games that are developed specifically for advertising purposes, to common games that have ads in its interface.

The internet and the video game consoles are great environments to use this strategy. Mobile media (cellphones, iPads, iPhones) are already being tested by companies that chose this marketing strategy too.

When we are talking about advergames it´s important to highlight two main concepts: in-game advertising and product placement.

IN-GAME ADVERTISING: it's just a replica of the real world ad brought into the virtual world, using banners, posters, radio spots and billboards. SSX3, the snowboarding game from Electronic Arts, shows Honda and Seven-Up billboards.

PRODUCT-PLACEMENT: it's about putting the product into the game context. The characters in the game Devil May Cry wear Diesel pants. In Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Pandora Tomorrow" the character uses a Sony Ericsson p900 smartphone to solve missions, the player literally lives the virtual experience of using the device. In Worms 3D, from SEGA, the characters drink Red Bull in order to jump higher.

So, game could be publicity/promotion. Could be a brand experience. Could be an advertising space for companies. Now on to your opinion!