The way audiences interact with businesses and advertising is evolving as a result of the rise of streaming and digital entertainment platforms. With so many ways to connect with customers, marketers are seeking new methods to engage with them, and it's all about interactivity and immersion. In 2022, marketing will be all about expanding on classic commercial storytelling themes and bringing them into the experiential area. It will also be about bringing customers into the brand narrative and allowing them to navigate their own, independent experience.
The Rise of Gaming
Consumers downloaded gaming apps in the pandemic in record numbers because of the pandemic and forced stay at home situations. Mandatory social distancing caused them to utilize their downtime to seek digital distractions. According to Statista, the time spent on video games during the COVID-19 epidemic grew by double digits in across the globe by June 2020, with Latin American gamers spending 52 percent more time on video games. Asia-Pacific came in second in terms of boosting user engagement, with a 42 percent increase in playing time.
Going by cases such as that of South Korea, gaming percentages increase with the improvement of web technology and internet speeds. Statistics also suggest that the introduction of 5G will accelerate the growth of video games because it represents a technological breakthrough that will improve the hype-connectivity of numerous devices. However, 5G will not only increase video game performance, but also advertising development.
5G technology will dramatically accelerate the transfer of data compared to all other wireless systems. Mobile AR gaming sessions will be longer, more accurate and immersive. 5G is expected to drop the current latency we experience on 4G from 50 milliseconds to less than six milliseconds. 5G is meant to be game-changing technology. The mass adoption of 5G will ensure a huge step forward in the diverse mosaic of game genres. How and when will be the right time to release games and advertising models that can take advantage of it is yet to be seen.
Benefits of a Gaming and Marketing Crossover
In the future years, marketing will focus on expanding on classic commercial storytelling principles and bringing them into the experiential area. With so many ways to connect with customers, marketers are seeking for new methods to engage them, and it's all about interactivity and immersion.
Due to the data that marketing companies will be able to collect, real-time analytics will allow optimization and adjustment campaigns at a much faster speed for the benefit of brands, ads on all devices will be almost instantaneous, bounce rates will decrease exponentially, allowing higher click-through rates and improving returns on investment. The great difficulty is to include companies in the game without being invasive; marketing plans must consider efficient and interactive integrations.
The Challenges of This Concept
The great challenge is to make brands a part of the game, but not in an intrusive way. Marketing strategies must consider efficient and interactive integrations that allow users to feel empathy for the brand while also providing a satisfying experience. This will then result in the player developing an interest in the brand and forming a bond. Knowing and comprehending the audience will be critical in light of this, and as a vital component of a plan.
The Predicted Future of Gaming Marketing
The desire to go beyond video games that were locked to hardware systems – from mainframes in the 1950s to stand-up arcades in the 1970s – spawned game engines. Gaming technology allows for maximum creative freedom and allows for the creation of live visuals that viewers can play and interact with. Game engines can boost productions by allowing for collaborative and responsive virtual workflows.
This technology also expands the ways we interact with our audiences by allowing us to create and deliver experiences for web, mobile, augmented, and virtual reality platforms. We can use Augmented Reality (think branded Instagram filters), Virtual Reality, and live interactive experiences to make content more gamified. Real-time rendering may be used to power future way finding in stadiums, museums, and public exhibits. When augmented and virtual realities are finally democratized and widely used in education, architecture, medicine, and other fields, it will power multiple XR experiences around the world. From $1.1 billion in 2019, the market is expected to grow to $4 billion by 2027.
Summing up
Consumers' interactions with brands are being dramatically transformed by game engines. It allows us to gamify material via augmented reality, virtual reality, and live interactive experiences. Consumers can play an active role in the brand narrative by incorporating game principles into marketing, creating an experience that elicits emotion and recall. Gamified content has a lot of appeal since it offers us agency and allows us to build our own story.
In 2022, marketing will focus on extending traditional commercial storytelling themes into the experiential realm. Longer, more accurate, and immersive mobile AR gaming sessions will be possible. 5G is expected to be a game-changing innovation. It remains to be seen how and when the right time will be to release games and advertising models that can take advantage of it. The big challenge is to integrate brands into the game without being too intrusive. Marketing strategies must consider effective and interactive integrations that allow users to empathize with the brand while also providing a positive experience.
By Sony Kunwar, Co-Founder and Sr. Vice President – Windsor Digital