Stop Targeting Millennials! Why Your Marketing Data is Completely Useless

The Instagram feed is the Instagram feed. Meta doesn't do anything to you. It's like, that's the feed you're working with. That's the real estate we're giving you. And that is it. And I think that's where some of the biggest opportunities lie in, you get to have a direct dynamic relationship. That's a lot more engaging because of the state of play. And you get to shape the entire environment and the experience around it, which there's no other medium that lets you do that. Welcome back to Brands & Play, your podcast for everything in massive marketing. I'm Alban Priyue, strategic marketing consultant. And I'm Nick Hill, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Saw Horse. This week marks 50 episodes of Brands & Play. And before we get into it, we just want to take a moment to acknowledge everyone who's been listening. We really appreciate you. I can't believe that it's been a 50 episode. We will continue to give you the best content possible. And on today's news, we have why boring brands are failing inside gaming, why coach is back inside the sims, how rocked are just legitimized mod culture with an official marketplace, how regal is turning Roblox play into real world movie rewards. And for our real time review, Alban takes us to the new Nike immersive experience at the London Outer Net. Absolutely. And after that, we'll be joined by Bastion Begnam, co-founder and CEO of Solston, an author of Pressplay where every company needs a gaming strategy will unpack why gaming psychology matters and how brands can engage successfully within virtual worlds. If you're enjoying the show, make sure to give us a follow. Each week we break down how brands, platforms, and creators operate inside. Gaming, UGC platforms, and immersive media. Let's get into it. Let's go. Damn, Alban, it's 50 episodes. That's huge. I know. I can't believe that. Like I said, I can't believe that it's been 50 weeks of hard work, but never, you know, not letting go. And I'm really proud of us and the whole team for doing it. Almost a year. Two episodes were done. And then we're done. We would have done a whole year. Two more to go. And that's a year. That's consistency. I'm super stoked. Well done. Yeah. Well done to everyone. Also, there's just so much happening right now. We're still in January and I feel like I was just going through all of the news, all the highlights that we kind of gathered together. And I was like, wow, there's so much happening this year. It's a great indicator. I think there's a lot to impact for the news today. So let's jump in and let's go to the news. All right. So my first story is why boring brands are failing in gaming. So that was a very bold, I would say, title from Beat TV. They have interview at CES Morgan Palmish. So she's the Senior Vice President and Head of Innovation and Experience at Digitas North America. So this is a great agency. And she's coming on the show in a couple weeks. Yes, she is. So that's her interview was honestly really, really annoying with what you and I have been talking about for quite some time now. But I just thought she highlighted really interesting topics that I think brand is still not completely grabbing. So I just thought it would be worse to highlights what she's mentioning. And most importantly, how that links with I think what you and I know now is that brands need to start thinking about their brand marketing, more from entertainment lens in which gaming falls. But within this interview, she unpacked a lot of really interesting insights. The first one is that I think she is mentioning that a lot of brands that are still, you know, copy and pasting some of the content that they have on traditional media. And you know, bringing on to a immersive or gaming environment just doesn't land really well. And something that she highlighted as well that which I really appreciate is, again, even if you are adapting your campaign or brand marketing strategy to a virtual environment, that strategy will have to be. We'll have to have differentiation between whether it's a Roblox or whether it's a Fortnite. So there is a lot of granularity that comes into launching your brand within those new virtual environments. She does mention and I think something, you know, that I totally appreciate is that there is a bit of a less carry that's not her words, but that just me interpreting a less carry option, which is rewarded video, which we know, I think when it comes to at least distribution of media is super easy and doesn't fill as intrusive. Because there is an exchange of value and I think for a lot of brands, this is the first thing that they can test to see what kind of reward that can get within gaming. And the other thing that I really like from her interview, she was asked essentially what was the impact of gaming within the funnel. And I think for a really long time awareness was really the piece that was highlighted on why you would do gaming, but she seems to think that and I think has a lot of case study that proved that actually gaming is not only a great awareness piece, but also a lot more impactful when it comes to mid funnel, but she does highlight that we're still on the path to bottom funnel. So she's a partnership being done with Roblox and Spotify. We're still talking about a path to a bottom funnel, a bottom funnel advantage here. This is more like top to mid tier. Yeah, I definitely agree. I feel like there's this sort of a dynamic or a mental shift that needs to happen with brands because it's not traditional advertising. It's traditional advertising where you control the message and it's short format and you just blast it out is very top down and not interactive. It's not, I don't know, it's just such a barrier to entry there. No, absolutely. And I think lasting to highlight, I think with her point is that we are now seeing more and more brand taking that entertainment lens. And this is just adding another piece of news within this story where gap has announced that they've hired someone to lead the entertainment strategy. So there's the hired pan, Kofman, I'm not butchering her name, but she is now the executive vice president chief entertainment officer of gap. She comes from Paramount as an executive. And they're talking about, you know, fashion, payment, another, another jargon, another word, but essentially to say that that customers are now not just buying apparel, they're buying to brand entails, comparing stories and drive cultural conversation. And that's a quote from her directly. So I think it's quite interesting to see that I think this year we're going to see more and more brands tapping into different pillars of entertainment to be able to engage with that younger generations, specifically the Gen A and Gen Z. Yeah, it feels like there's a little bit of a shift when it comes to the brand messaging in it, it's becoming more entertaining. It's more branded content is more long form and it's more organic. And that's just a little bit of a challenge for brands. Sometimes that's tough right now. So I feel like if a brand can give me, you know, if there want two minutes of my attention, we're watching the content, like it better be fun and bring up like lift my spirit up because the bar keeps rising. Yeah, activations are so impressive these days that, you know, if you want to cut through, you got to be dope. You exactly you got to put in some efforts, but what do you have next? Next up, I have a story all about how coach the fashion brand has activated inside of the Sims 4. And then for the listeners, I think most people understand what the Sims is, but if you don't, it's a life simulation game or players design characters, build homes, create environments and role play everyday life situations. And this franchise is 25 years old. So it's super OG. I remember it doesn't, it makes me so old, but I remember when it first came out. Yeah, so I was like sensational. It was like one of its kind. It's like old school, men of verse, you know, you got to give it props. But I know that you love stats. So I pulled these. It's like 85 million players worldwide. It's current concurrent user base. It's like 20 to 45 K with peak at about 95 K. It's. It's, you know, really attracted to Gen Z and millennials and it skews more female with like about 60% female. Yeah. And what coach did is cool is they didn't just advertise in the Sims like a temporary pop up. They were looking at it more of a persistent sort of activation inside of the game. So adding to the creative tool, the players there can create shoppable digital collections. They brought in the iconic bags, the tabby and the Brooklyn and players can build and design coach branded interiors and furniture. So it's sort of like built into the broader ecosystem of the game, the build mode. So it's not just like a temporary thing that's showing up and then going away. So it's sort of them. It's the brand really like leaning in and being persistent there. And one thing that I'm seeing as a trend with fashion brands is that like brands in general are getting smarter in their activations. You know, like this is the they've been doing this for years now inside of gaming. So, you know, we're getting away from those PR stunt moments where it's like this brand went into this game temporarily. Like that's so amazing. Now it's like, okay, well now that you're there. What are you doing? You know, just showing up again doesn't make it add a lot of value. So there's three things that I think that we're starting to see more brands do. One is there are starting to offer more value to the player. So once you're inside like what is the what is the thing to do? Does it help you play the game in a certain way? And I think it's utility. So, can you attach perks to the actual digital wearables that you're wearing inside the game? Do they give you, I'd like you to play the game in a different way or a better way, so not just visual. And then also co-creation. So, letting players remix the brand from a GNI standpoint, tweak the style of the fashion, and be a co-creation together with that brand. So, I see a trend of just adding more value and more strategic smart ways of going inside of these games. What are your thoughts? I haven't been to the Sims to check it out, but I'm really curious to see how they've deployed it. Because I agree with you, even if we look at the Sims and the past activation, the first one that comes to one is probably the. I'm going to butcher it again. But Mochino is it? It's the brand Mochino? Moschino. Moschino. And I think there was a bit of backlash because there was no utility, and it was essentially just a pack that was quite expensive already for the community. And I think that's the recurrent feedback from the Sims communities, that it's packs after packs after packs. It's quite expensive if you want to continue to get those new updates. So, I think it's great that Coach understood that and looked at longer time what is going to be the value of our pack. Because you're right, where I think now, in some communities, there's never been an eagerness to have brands. And you always had. Like brands had to always justify themselves. I think there's been some communities that justified that you came was really exciting and you felt seen. But I think more and more gaming communities now are like, "Okay, brands are coming into games. We know that. But what are you going to bring me?" Because I think. What's the point? Exactly what's the point. And I think this is what makes or break as well a long-term success of a brand within a community. And whether you're going to see actually an impact within your funnel is what are you giving to consumers that will make them want to engage with your longer time and actually purchase from your brand? Just going up there and delivering a message. It's just not enough. And I think it's never been enough. But I feel like the novelty maybe a few years ago was enough to excite. I'm excited to see more brands come in. Yeah, what do you got for Rockstar? So, very exciting. I mean, we. There was teas. Last year, there was a lot of rumors of Rockstar engaging with UGC creators from different platforms, including Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft. But now this is officially launched. They have an official marketplace called CFX Marketplace, which is essentially an official storefront for modders and UGC creators. And UGC creators to release different types of customization. So you can create maps, scripts, characters, clothing. That's a good one for our fashion brands vehicles as well. And the good thing is that at the moment is quite I think it is still a soft launch. I think it is still a process like not everyone can join and be a creator, but everyone can buy. And it's quite interesting. So I was I was I tried to register as a creator just to see the process. And there's a few things that are popping up from their licensing agreements. So when you when you're on roll, there's a contract essentially that you have to sign. What's interesting is that the maximum price that you can, you know, put any type of items for sale is $500, which already is really expensive. And I was looking on the marketplace, some of the creators, like some of the maps, for example, that have been built are almost $200. So I was really surprised by how expensive it is. And I haven't mentioned it. Sorry, but the marketplace is providing UGC for two of their most popular games. So it's red and redemption and GTA five. But it's it's kind of, you know, we know that this is going to be as well the strategy for the upcoming GTA six, which is due to release end of well mid mid November 26th, if there's no further delay. Another thing that I saw was really interesting again from their agreement is that rock star is, you know, the intermediate, sorry for the payments, meaning that there's going to be a fee that they will get every time there is a transaction. The actual percentage is not disclosed within the contract. And I couldn't find anything online that specified how many I think is because now it's still like an enclosed group of creators, so they might have had one on one agreements with them. Definitely a great opportunity for for creators to partner with potential brands and bring them on this marketplace. Yeah, I think it's awesome. It's definitely a signal that rock star is getting into UGC, you know, I think that we, you know, we all anticipate that GTA six will have a UGC component that we're really excited about. This to me is almost like them testing the waters and experience of dealing with UGC because it is so difficult, right? It's like an open situation where you have to vet so much content coming in. So I feel like maybe this is their opportunity to get a custom to it and build up a team so they can attach it to GTA six whenever they decide to make the UGC component of that life. I think I have the art for for our listeners, but GTA like GTA five always had a really big mod community the same way as the Sims. So they would have been like this or exactly they would have been on overworld. They would have been on a lot of different marketplace. This is essentially an objective from rock star to centralize and have like a wall garden around those creations. So one, they can control their IP, but to obviously they can, you know, make a revenue out of this. So we'll keep you updated on that. What do you have next? I feel like I've butchered the name here. Was it is a regal is regal regal see I've butchered the name in my entry. So it's okay. There's no regal movie theaters in the UK to my knowledge. I think that it's a US based movie theater chain called regal. So in the news, we're excited about this new launch that they have done on Roblox with all these IRL rewards attached. So they created this virtual movie theater environment experience game on Roblox. It was created by super league and inside players can go into this digital lobby. It looks just like the theater in the real world. And then there's a little mini game attached to it, which is an endless runner style game. So not that complex, but you just sort of dodge things and you kind of collect coins. But if you collect enough coins, you can unlock real world benefits, which is free popcorn via the bounce technology. And so bounce is a tech platform that connects in game actions to IRL rewards and loyalty. They super league actually just acquired them and brought them into the fold. So congrats to that team. So this is interesting. Like I jumped in and I checked it out. There wasn't a ton of players at, you know, we're in there, but I did play the games. It's fairly simple. And you know, from my perspective, I'll just break down the pros cons here. Like I think the pro is I like to see this stuff because this is moments where brands can actually kind of go past the game and connect with people to their core business. In order to redeem this reward, this popcorn players actually have to go to the physical locations. And in general, this sort of immersive marketing is offering value to the player. Right. That's the good part. I think for the cons, you know, this is an owned experience by Regal. So they have to drive traffic to it. And obviously that's a challenge. The game itself is very simple. So, you know, it's it can't really compete with the other endless runners on the platform because it's like it's just a simple version. So if you think about retention, you know, why would players come back if it's only to redeem popcorn, what are the reasons are there. And there's still some friction like you have to download the app, you have to verify and then you go into the place you can redeem. But it's not super seamless and easy, but I will say it's definitely getting better. And from a holistic view from an innovation standpoint, I love to see this stuff. I want to keep dropping the the barrier to entry and the friction. And I want I would love to see more brands attaching this type of thing to the activations they do. So it seems like early step, but I was I was excited to see this. I when you were mentioning this, I will flip actually like I don't know if that was their objective, but I would flip the consumer journey where when I'm hearing this is like very simple game kind of feels like a very more gamification that actually a game. And very quick session times and it feels more like the person was already going like to the cinema. And I don't know how it is in their theater, but I would assume this like a QR code they see roblox they see that do the redeem the popcorn and that's a way maybe for if I was if I was them I would use I was assumed that you can use that as a way to see what is the crossover between people that already go to our cinema and our roblox players. So that it's less about how do we get people from roblox to our cinema is how do we get people from the cinema to roblox so that you can kind of collate that kind of data. Yeah, that would be my assumption if if you because I don't think purely from where you mentioned that the objective is to get people to come back. It's more how do we get them they already in the cinema how do you get them to engage that we understand what is the crossover so that later down the line we know what is addressable audience. That would be all you said data. There's value and I think it scratches the surface of that sort of. really connecting with that consumer, with through gamification, but I think it can be kind of expanded on great things. Absolutely, absolutely. But I think it's a great, I'm always keen to see like how do you bridge the gap between the two and it's always really exciting, especially with this cinema. I think we know that less and less people, especially going to generation, are going to physical location, to consume movie. So any perks that they can do, I think it's a great idea. Smart move. Yeah. But let's keep this train moving. Let's go to our real time review and Alban, let's see what's up with Nike. Yeah. Okay. So for our real time review, I'm really excited because you're the one that comes up with really cool events, immersive, et cetera. And I'm just like, well, I went on to a Roblox game. Well, fortunate. Yeah. And that's kind of the only thing I can talk about. You went somewhere physically. But I actually bumped into it. I was not planning, I was planning a completely different type of episode, but I bumped into this activation from Nike for their release to their new release campaign called Nike Mind. So I'll give a bit of like insight on what the campaign is about because I think the activation is a bit confusing otherwise. So Nike has released a new pair of shoe called Nike Mind. So it's quite innovative. I feel like you might like this. So it took them a decade to be able to release this new product, but it's essentially a neuroscience base footwear that is designed to enhance mental focus. To put it very like blanley, it has like pressure points within the soul of the shoe and is supposed to bring the athletes back into like connect, essentially connected their mind and body before and after performance. I love that. So I thought that was like really interesting. However, this is something that I had to like look at much later on after I've engaged with the experience. So the experience itself was in the internet. So London has, it's in a very busy. So it's next to, it's next to Tottenham Road. This is a very busy area, a bit like Times Square. Like I would say. Yeah. Okay. Like lots of like really busy areas like in the center of London next to Piccadilly circus, etc. But they have this new immersive space that has 8K screen like all around you. So essentially you are kind of immersed within whatever context is in there and they have an amazing sound system. So there's been loads of artists but brands taking over the space to be able to like immerse their consumers in like in an innovative way. This was the first time that I so Nike do anything there. So I was really excited to just see what they had to do. And essentially what they've done is that they leverage the space to be able to create this really cool like it looks like I also like you'll see the footage but it's like this 3D avatar that has like a brain like you can see through his brain and then the shoe is obviously connected to it. And then you have a sound that is like really meditative. So it's kind of like bringing you I think what's really interesting with this venue is that it's free, it's kind of open but you just enter this space that's like full of screens. But you still you can still see and hear a little bit like the sound, the rush of the city behind but what's really interesting with what they've done with the piece of content and the music that you immediately feel like much more calm. So I was like, okay. So it was really cool is that people like you have a few benches but people were sitting down and spending like I spent maybe like 15 minutes but by the time I arrived and left there were some people that were still like kind of like meditating and just looking at the content over and over and over again. So I feel like with that that was something that to me was really good is that they created a piece of content that aligns really well with what they were trying to do with the shoe which is connecting the body to the mind, you know resetting yourself like. So people were feeling that. Yes, yeah, yeah. They were actually feeling it. The thing is like you have to think about it. So it's like you enter this box that has screen all around you and also above you. So it's eight feet height I think. So you just looking at it, you feel like you feel so small and any kind of content as there just feels like incredible to look at and it's 8K so it's like the graphics are absolutely mind blowing. So it always grabs people's attention. But there's no, you don't you don't get to try it on the shoes. No, that's going to come in my bad spot things. So the good thing is like yeah, people are staying there for a really long time because the experience is really captivating and I think resonates a lot with the campaign. It is, as I said, like, it associates the brain with a very positive sentiment. People are staying there for like minutes. Like, so I don't know how long some of those people were there for like, some were with their kids and they were just like looking at it for quite some time and we're sitting on the floor. So I assume that they've been there for quite some time. And I think it just, you had the shoe in display, but I would say it didn't feel like the focus of it, which I think goes into maybe my bad side, which is one is still relatively passive. So you're just watching a screen. There was some interaction where you can like go into like a circle and that will illuminate one of the screens, but you know, it's not like, it's not incredible. It's okay. I would say in terms of interactivity. But it's free. It's free. It's free. Again, you don't pay money. It's free. No, it's free. That's cool, which is great. And I think my thoughts is that I, I, if it wasn't for this episode, I would have not connected the shoe. Like, I just saw this shoe and I was like, this is futuristic, but I just thought it was like a stand from Nike. I didn't even think that this was a new product. So I think this is when I feel innovation or a massive immersion can kind of get lost as a priority compared to what you're trying to do. So it felt a bit more like an awareness piece for the brand and not the product. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that is a challenge, especially going back to last week's episode, we were talking about the concept of agency. You know, once you have an immersive experience, you're not really controlling the message because people have the ability to wander around and focus on different points. So if you really want to get what message clear, you have to do that very strategically. Exactly. This is a not really hitting in that way. But even, you know, they could have put like a bit of pecs or representative someone that was like next to explain a little bit what it was. But other than that, I thought it was great. In terms of innovation, was it innovative? I would say for London, it was because arguably this is one of the most like innovative, like immersive spaces that we have the alternates. No one here, you know, what you could have done with, you know, this fear or anything like that. I think I say it's fairly new and I think this is why people are still stopping and staying so much time in that room watching Mikey content. So I thought that was in a way like really good. And as I said, the content, I loved it. I thought the creative was really like really inspiring and really calming in like the hustle and bustle of the city. So they've definitely like managed to like to bring that message forward. Well, it's cool. I'm definitely jealous. I wish I could have checked it out. It's a cool wreck. It's awesome. It doesn't have. London's got cool shit. Yeah. But let's keep moving. Thank you for that breakdown. That was awesome. And now let's jump to our interview with Bastion Bergman. We're pleased to welcome Bastion Bergman, co-founder and COO of Solston, an AI-driven platform that uses psychology to help brands better understand and engage their audiences. And he's the author of the book Press Play, why every company needs a gaming strategy. I first met Bastion at SEG3 last month and today we're excited to talk about gaming culture, how branch to look at gaming in 26 and the opportunities for advertising in the immersive gaming marketing space. Bastion, welcome to Brands and Play. Thank you guys for having me. It's a good side. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, we're excited to chat with you. I read your book. I loved it. I think it was a really good job of talking about the game marketing space over the past like five years or so. And you cover a lot of the biggest campaigns across a lot of platforms, a lot of different games. I thought it was really helpful. Also, at Saw Horse, we talked to a lot of marketing teams who were kind of new to the space. And there's always so much education that goes into these calls. And I kind of want to be like, there's a great book. And you just read this and then come back to me and we'll start talking. I appreciate you saying that. That was part of the goal for me is to give a resource to everyone that's looking at this space and help build a bridge really. That's kind of where all this came from because it felt like gaming is such a unique industry in its own world. And it operates under very different rules compared to a lot of other industries. And I think for folks on that quote unquote, outside, if you're consumer goods or fashion or what have you and you're looking at this, it's very different than any of your traditional marketing or advertising channels. Also very different how, if you think about, how do we actually use this as a revenue generator? How do we incorporate this into our services and products? It's foreign territories still for a lot of leaders and decision makers. And that was the input is back then to even go on this journey and spend four years of my life to put that together was really if I can help build the bridge and be part of the resource that you just alluded to, Nick, then, yeah, I think I think. I've done my job at that point, so that's really good to hear. You definitely did. Yes, and thank you for your service. I'm going to leverage this. I'm going to get this book out to as many people as I can because it's a great read. But in the book, you argue that gaming is no longer a niche, but more a core component of brand strategy. Can you explain that in a little bit more detail and then how you got there? Yeah, so I think there's a few numbers that are really important and honestly, they tell the whole story. And typically when you start to have conversations with brand leaders or marketers or executives in that space, to your exact point, and the amount of education that you still have to do, to just be able to wrap your head around this opportunity that is gaming, still pretty profound. And I think the number one barrier or blocker that gets in the way is the mindset and it's stereotypes and the mental model around what people think gaming is. It's really funny when you look at some of the conversations, people that chime in either on LinkedIn or elsewhere, even about the book, some have read it, some haven't, you always get into this very nuanced discussions from people that have been in the gaming industry for 30 years ago, but that's not gaming, like mobile gaming, it's not gaming. And I think it's that exact mindset that's still getting in the way of, well, how do you actually look at this industry? So what I mean in the book and why I think every company needs a gaming strategy and how to best think about this space is there's a few really important points. One, you have almost have three and a half billion people that play video games globally, almost daily. So yes, that is not just the people that are sitting in front of your PlayStation or your Xbox and they're playing a hardcore shooter game. That's the stereotype that people still latch on to. It's the 20 year old dude in the basement with neon lights in the background and they're slinging an energy drink and they're blowing stuff up on their screen. Yes, those people exist. Absolutely. And they're a core part of a subset of the gaming culture and what that used to be in the 80s and 90s. But that's not the representation of quote unquote everybody that plays because when you look at three and a half billion people actively engaging in games and that's across all the different platforms and that includes mobile for, you know, obviously, very good reasons. You're talking about your average consumer. Is 80% of the people that even have a smartphone that actually play video games. So the crossover to just your general consumer population is profound. And then, you know, when you compare it to wall social media, some of these other, you know, other channels that markers or brand leaders would use to maybe reach and engage consumers, young audiences specifically. So Gen Z Gen Alpha combined spend about three times the amount of time in gaming environments then on all social media channels combined for Gen Alpha specifically, the dominant medium. This is the first generation in history, the dominant medium through which they engage, socialize, consume news and any other form of entertainment is gaming. They, they game more than they do anything else in terms of media media consumption. The fastest growing segment in terms of gaming consumption and played, you know, hours played in a given week are silver surfers 80 years and above. So where I'm going with this is it's not, it often gets discounted as well young people play. No, everybody, everybody plays. And it's the only consumer medium that actually cuts across all demographic cohorts. And I think that's, you know, some of those statistics and that's what makes it really, really relevant for brands because all the attention is in games, all the engagement is in games monetization is bigger in games than anywhere else. You have all of that and then you compare to, well, where's the global advertising dollar going? Well, only 5% of the total global ad spend are actually going into video gaming environments. And when you take those two together, what's actually really interesting to think about is 20 years ago, there was another medium that was in exactly the same position. It had all the engagement. It had all the attention and it was barely getting any advertising dollars. And that was social media. And I'll fast forward, we all know how that went for social media. And I'm convinced we're going to see a similar wave and a similar acceleration around gaming in the coming years. I'm fully on board with that. And I like to dive a bit more into the people that are playing this game because I think you're right whether you talk about the fight that's the gaming stereotype is dead. And I'm fully on board with that because because there are so many different types of gamers. It's a little bit like trying to create someone that's like there's no one type of person that you tell like social media. There's very different. 100% communities. 100% communities. I love to maybe like link that to the to the world that you're doing at Solston. Can you maybe give our marketers listeners a bit of advice on how they should think about gamers and maybe going beyond, you know, the traditional demographic segmentation, each and a bit more like the psychographic as well that you like some of the data that you can have as well on your platform. Yeah, I'd be happy to. And you you just gave the exact reason for why companies brands, you know, any company when you think about your customer or prospective customers and consumers in general, you can't think of them as well. We're going to market in cell to 40 to 50 year old women in the United States. No. Good. That's what social media was so popular because it out you really narrowed down on who you're trying to speak. That's exactly it. And so when you're painting with these really broad strokes, that's like saying, you know, women in the US and that age range all like the same color they drink the same drink and they all eat the same food, which is obviously not true. But for some reason, because it's simple, we tend to, you know, lean into these demographic stereotypes. The challenge is neither your age, your gender or your zip code or anything like that. Actually, tell us anything about who you are as a person. You know, the fact that you live on the West Coast, Nick, tell, doesn't tell me anything about who Nick is. Other than I'm like, I'm jumping to West Coast stereotypes and then I'm not doing right by you and I'm not even investing in getting to know the human that is behind that zip code and behind the fact that you live out on the West coast. And I think that's the big point where demographic data doesn't let you understand and connect with the actual human and behavioral data is only useful up to a certain point. The challenge with behavior is twofold. You're always looking into the review mirror. You're always looking into the past. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to look at the behavior. It already happened. It happened. But it's actually a pretty poor predictor of future behavior. So you can't really predict the future from past behavior. And this is the second big reason. You don't know why the behavior happened. You just know it happened. You just know it's there. And that's one of the most fundamental discussions that we get to have with teams, whether it's on the marketing side, on the brand side and even on the product or on the innovation side, they sit on all this data and they look at all this data. And then they go, well, we have this specific cohort. Maybe they're, you know, this age, they skew mail. I'm like, okay, that's all great. And they're similarly engaged on our website or maybe in a game that we have, we have a branded experience on Roblox. They're similarly engaged. One group picked up the free item that we gave out and the other ones didn't. But otherwise from an engagement perspective, they were the same. And they go, well, do you know why one group went for the item that you gave out and the other ones didn't know. We just know that they did. And that's the problem. You don't know the driver behind the behavior, which makes the next question then that teams inevitably run into almost impossible to solve for, which is, well, how do we fix it? How do we get more people to engage with the stuff that we're dropping into the experience? You can't answer that question if you don't know what's driving and compelling the behavior in the first place. So what the work that we do at Solts them is we move companies and teams in their understanding of who audiences are, whether it's their existing customers or prospective people that they want to reach, whether they play games or engage on other platforms. It's broad because we're talking about consumers in general. We move them all the way upstream to understand the psychology, the psychographics behind the audience because that ultimately what compels people's behavior, what nudges us to, you know, watch this movie versus this movie to buy this t-shirt over this brand and so on and so forth. So that's what's actually gives you the very nuanced understanding of why things are happening and why we're observing certain behavior and what to do about it. So it's very useful in informing marketing, creative, brand positioning, messaging because now I can position myself as a brand and as a company with the experiences that we're building, with the content that we're going out actually in line with the actual motivations or the personality attributes or the values that people have and values are really important. People spend time and money on the things that they value. So the more we can speak to them and embed ourselves within those and against those, the more we're going to resonate with the people that we want to try or whose attention we want to try and get. I love that. I mean, that's like the why, you know, it's so important and I feel like once that's established, then that question is, well, where do we place them in what games, in what platforms? And I guess my question for you is like in 26, what platforms do you think marketers should be focusing on? What has the most potential? And are there any like, you know, dark horses out there platforms or games that people should be thinking about? Yeah, it's really good question. I would never go to a brand and say like you have to focus on just one platform because what's key for any brand or any company and they're called gaming integrations and gaming strategies at large for them to be effective and work and deliver the results that they want, they have to be authentic. Okay, so how do we get to authenticity? Authenticity is where back to the conversation that we were just having, if I can understand the actual needs, drivers, and desires of the people that I'm trying to engage, and match that and map that against what I stand for as a brand, my own brand values, my value proposition, those two have to align. That's what creates authentic experiences. And I think that also shapes with, well, what types of platforms do we maybe want to be in an act of, and because some, some platform lends itself better for a specific brand than others, for example, the New York Times is one of them, one of my favorite examples, I dedicated section on them in the, in the book, they're not on wall blocks, at least not as far as I know, they're not on, you know, in Fortnite or anything like that, which are, those are some of the obvious ones you jump to, they make mobile games. And they're exclusively focused on, they want to become the premier destination for puzzle games. Because that fits so authentically with Crossword and with the ethos of the New York Times. So they just lean into that, and it's, it's incredible for them for some other brands, you know, you take Paramount, for example, and their SpongeBob IP, like, they just had this activation in Fortnite, and they absolutely killed it. It was incredible. So there was a great overlap there because SpongeBob with this quirky humor, there's a, there's a, there's a specific fandom overlap with the Fortnite audience, but the idea of SpongeBob as the companion and the way Fortnite has a game of structured, and you bring your companion along on all these missions into the battle royale, and you go, it's what, like, it just fits the game and the narrative and the gameplay so naturally and so authentically. So I think my advice would always be, you have to start start with the audience, the cut the conversation we just had, then you have to do some soul searching, who are we? Who do what do we actually stand for? What are our value propositions? Make those two ends meet and then go, well, the audience that we want to engage, which platforms are they on? What types of games do they most play? And then across that, where do we want to place our bets? And I, I don't think it's, you have to be on one platform, and that's it. I do think you have to spread your wings a little bit and some are going to work better for you than others. Everyone, I think we're probably, you know, instinctively jumped to roblox, you have to be on roblox just because it had, they had a very good 2025. It's growing quickly. The numbers are there. They're trying to do more on the advertising side. I do think they have some way to go on actual measurement and attribution, being able to let brands track downstream effects, rather than just brand awareness. I think 2026, and it's not a dark horse because they're well known, but I think Epic and Fortnite are going to have an absolute gangbuster year. I think what they've been doing over the last two months, it's you're starting to see where their heads are at and where they're going. The Simpsons release was incredibly well orchestrated. Yeah. Text, text book. To me, that was what the future of trans media releases are going to look like. Like they just is Nate and Epic together hats off. That was phenomenal. They're coming out with South Park, you know, today we're building this so it's actually being released today. The video footage, I saw that's that looks incredible. And they're making all the right investments in the background to actually be able to go to brands and say, here you go. Like here's your, we make it easy as an on ramp. So that would be my, I think breakout platform, even though it's well known, but I think they're just they're going to have an incredible year. And then dark, dark horse quote unquote, if it comes out in November, it would be GTA six. Of course, if it has the creator economy element to it, if it allows for integrations, because that would be such a you can already see just like from what the Grand Theft Auto gameplay is and the sceneries of the cities and all the activities that you could do, like how naturally that lends itself for different brands to integrate itself and become playable to within that environment. So I think if they have that ready on launch, that could be a big one for sure. Yeah, I think you're naming the two that I had in my prediction, Fortnite at GTA as well. I think Fortnite with unity as well in the direct towards mobile, they're really evolving. Let's see what GTA but for sure, Fortnite and Roblox are now an evolution of social media there. There, as you mentioned, that they have a whole creator economy around their Fortnite is still like developing it. I guess I would love to for you, I think you've talked about this in your book, but I would love for brands to understand a little bit more from you, how they should think about these spaces, because I think it's bit of a different shift of mindset, where hosting something on social media, where you have like a semi passive response, like the most that you can get is probably like a comment if you super lucky. And I think I love for you to deep dive a little bit on how brands can interact within these spaces and what it means to engage with that new type of community, I guess. Yeah, I think my my the facetia statement would be if you don't want to engage with consumers and have that interaction, then don't go into a place that lives off of that interaction. Right. I'll take one step back because you're actually mentioning an incredibly important point, because people always ask me, well, but social media, there's so many people on social media and it's still the numbers are still there. We've all seen the financial timescrap where social media users declining a little bit, but yes, met us still has three and a half billion people across all of its properties, like the reach is massive. But you actually mentioned an incredible point because I always say, well, games are more effective though in attracting retaining attention and engaging people. And the reason for that is, while social media is a passive experience, as he said, it's one directional, it doesn't actually require our participation, games are bidirectional, its action reaction, it doesn't work if we're not engaged. We're an active participant of the experience. And that's what creates flow states, that's what what actually creates immersion, which is why you're seeing these engagement numbers, which actually then leads to higher brand recall, elevated levels of brand awareness, more brand loyalty, higher conversions, not just in the gaming environment, in the digital environment, but also to the physical item compared to any other channel. So, and I think games in that sense, to your to your question, it's not just a destination where people go to play, they do a lot more in those environments, they hang out with their friends, they want to interact, they want to meet new people, they want to socialize, they want to play, want to do all these things. And I think as a brand, you have to be ready for this is actually a huge opportunity, you can become playable and you can let people experience you as a brand with all of your facets. I think if you go into these environments, you got to go all in, you have to take it for everything that it is and that it has to offer, because it's a massive opportunity, even if you quote unquote, just integrate with an existing game, but you know, think about you're building your own game, whether it's a mobile game or you're building your own Roblox game on Roblox, or you're getting your own island within Fortnite, yes, you have the art style, you know, that's defining that overall, overall game. However, that approach has one fundamental advantage for any brand compared to social media, you get to shape the experience from the ground up, you get to design it, you get to shape it to what you want it to be, and what you want it to represent about who you are as a company. The Instagram feed is the Instagram feed meta doesn't do anything to you, it's like, that's the feed you're working with, that's the real estate we're giving you. And that is it. And I think that's where some of the biggest, biggest opportunities lie in, you get to have a direct dynamic relationship, that's a lot more engaging because of the state of play, and you get to shape the entire environment and the experience around it, which there's no other medium that lets you do that. I wonder, it sounds like we're going to see more and more brands sort of crack that code. But I do think the majority of the brands right now are looking at it from like a brand marketing standpoint. But I think my last question for you, as we're heading up to time here, the book is called Why Every Company Needs a Gaming Strategy. And as of right now, most companies don't have a gaming strategy. Do you think we're going to reach a point where every company actually does? And if so, realistically, when do you see that happening? I mean, time frame. The first of all, passion. Yeah, I wish I had that crystal ball. I, I think it's going to, well, it's going to take years to get to that point. If we ever get to, you know, actually, the point where every company has a, as a strategy for this, why every company needs a strategy because every company engages and deals with human beings. So I always, one of the most striking examples I give a, I give a talk at the Gamescom Congress last year on this. And afterwards, two partners from one of the, I can't say the name, but one of the biggest law firms in the world came up to me and said, we were just curious. We thought this wasn't going to be relevant for us as a law firm. But now we're like, we should be doing compliance internally training with games and this and that. I'm like, you're absolutely right. Because you have a workforce of over 20,000 people and you're asking people to fill in hundreds of questions to do like really mundane basic stuff. So, you know, when I say every company, yeah, you might be in the direct to consumer business, where it's very obvious that you're a data, you're selling sneakers to a consumer to a person. That's very obvious. But if you're that law firm, well, you have clients, you're dealing with other companies, but they're run by human beings. So there's ways for you to leverage gaming principles. Maybe you're not integrating on roadblocks, but maybe there's training materials. There's educational stuff that you're doing around. And we actually did this at BCG back in the day, where you develop a game for that. And then you have employees internally, training, rescaling, upscaling, compliance, all this stuff. So I would encourage everyone to look at where are the opportunities for us as an organization when we think about our touch points as a business, as a as a as a company with human beings. And that could be externally, obviously, with consumers. But that's just as well internally within employees. Well said. Bastion. Thank you for your insights. Thank you for writing this book. The book again is called press play. Why every company needs a gaming strategy. We encourage our listeners to check it out. It's definitely worth your time. But again, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me with you. Continue to produce. It was a absolute pleasure. Yeah. Thanks for thanks for having me on. Awesome. And let's go back to the show. It was such a pleasure to talk to Bastion. Honestly, I think we could have carried on talking to him. But for me, the key highlights that he mentioned was gaming is cross-generational. So while there is an opportunity for you to reach Gen A, Gen Z, you can also reach, you know, your boomers. And I actually, as you mentioned, this is a generation that's actually more and more on those mobile games. So gaming is a cross-generational platform for you to engage with. But as you mentioned, you need to adapt your strategy based on the platform that you're going into. And I really loved his approach to, I guess, you know, what is a long-term strategy as opposed to shorter-term campaigns, if you want to get the return investment essentially that you're expecting from these new platforms. Yeah, great point. And also, I just want to double down on how valuable this book is for people in the marketing world who are, you know, they might be thinking, like, should I get into gaming? Does it make sense for my brand? Like, this book is perfect for them to read because coming out of that read, you get a good sort of primer on the interactive gaming marketing space historically. What are some of the biggest campaigns that have seen the most success from all different verticals? It does a really great job of kind of just setting people knowledge base up to then try something. So I would just really encourage people to check it out. And I love his enthusiasm. He's just so bullish on the space like we are. And it definitely the book toward the end, it's really focused on making that point clear that, you know, brands coming inside of gaming, this is not an if, it's just a win. Okay, but after that, shall we go to your hit, Miss Ani? Let's go. All right. So for my hit, you stole this from me in the story. My hit is the how Gap opened up their content studio revolution. I didn't go into detail. So I think you can, you can like open up. Sure. I don't have a ton of details on it. But I do think that I'm inspired by it. They're opening a physical location in Hollywood. And they have designed, like you mentioned earlier, that new role, the chief entertainment officer. And so yeah, they got the former Paramount exec to run that. It's and now the basically that that role is at the C suite level. So when brands think, or when Gap thinks about how it's going to reach consumers from marketing standpoint, the entertainment marketing is at the top leadership level. So we've already seen Gap do really interesting innovative, sort of branded content with anime and all kinds of other sort of cross promotional stuff. I'm just really excited to see what entertainment, fashion, entertainment as they're calling it. They're got it that's going to roll out this year. So that's my win. That's my hit. You know, props to Gap. I'm excited to see what's coming. Absolutely. My miss. I don't know if we talked about this on the show, but I saw it pop up again, but Nike quietly sold its fashion and NFT company artifact last month. And to me, you know, the miss was going so all in on NFTs. You know, because obviously this shows that it didn't work. You know, maybe they had their moment of success and now they're kind of like just backing away. But also I think it's a miss with Nike. How they aren't fully sold on gaming yet. I don't know if you've noticed this, but like they tried Roblox. Yeah. And they're not doing any more. They tried Fortnite and they're not doing it anymore. And you know, I just for such a cool brand, they just haven't figured out how to consistently show up in gaming in a way that's offering value. And I think that like there's so many gamers that are Nike fans. So absolutely. Why I mean, I don't know. Maybe they're just they continue to test the waters. My bet. I think we've talked about this a little bit, but I think I think it's actually going to happen this year. I think, you know, there's this massive sort of trend with UGC gaming and the AAA industry sees this. And we're going to start to roll UGC components out to a lot of the AAA titles that are coming. I think it's just, you know, within this year, a major UGC gaming company will acquire a UGC gaming company studio. So you can imagine like maybe Activision buys Voldex, the Roblox gaming studio. And folds it in because they're not used to the UGC gaming culture and the audience. You know, they make titles, they make different type of games, mobile games, AAA, console. It's very different from this new weird UGC world. So it's a lot easier to acquire when these really talented gaming studios that have tons of hits within these UGC gaming platforms. And just fold it in and then figuring out how to take their IP or their sort of brand and get that into the platforms like Roblox and Fortnite. So I just think an acquisition is coming and that will be very interesting and exciting to see, you know, these companies, these UGC gaming studios that we talk about, maybe one will fall under a massive AAA title. I wouldn't be surprised because I think your spot on where it is another can of worms. And I think if they want to be part of that conversation, and especially as we know, the creating a AAA game is still incredibly expensive and lengthy, even with AI, development, etc. So I think they probably are all looking at how do we continue to engage our fans with those shorter-time games, I guess, and lower-lift games. So I wouldn't be surprised. I think that's a safe bet, Nick. Let's see it come true. Let's see if it comes through. And that's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure to like and follow so we can keep bringing you the latest on immersive marketing. Edward, read us out. And that was Brands in Play. Thank you for joining the podcast. We'll be exploring immersive marketing and the people who are leading it. Coasted by Albandt Puyu and Nick Hill. I'll show you today was produced by myself at a radio with Creative Direction by Joey Gerder and Audio Engineering by Simon Kew. The Views thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the hosting guests and do not necessarily reflect the views, policies, or positions of host employers. The information shared during this podcast is based on personal experience and publicly available information. It is intended for informational purposes only. Any references to specific platforms, companies, or partnerships are made in a personal capacity and do not imply endorsement, partnership, or official association, but any organization mentioned.