Throw Out Your Brand Guidelines. Give Gamers Control.

The players are making the content. Everybody is a creator today. They're all remixing your ideas, they're moving your story forward. So that means that brands need to be okay, relinquishing some of that control. Welcome back to Brands & Play, your podcast for everything in Mass & Marketing. I'm Alban Pryou, strategic marketing consultant. And I'm Nick Hill, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Saw Horse. This week on the show, Walmart is bringing commerce to chat GPT. WPP announces a five-year partnership with Google AI. McDonald's has a new Street Fighter 2 collab and ELF tests shoppable Amazon ads on Twitch. And for our real-time review, I'm really excited to share with you the Sesame Street neighborhood adventure that's now on Roblox. It looks incredible, so I'm really excited to tell you more about it. I'm looking forward to that. And later, we'll be sitting down with Magali Uo, the SVP of Global Gaming Strategy at Densu, to find out how one of the biggest, hold-co agencies in the world is approaching video game marketing. So, right, don't forget to subscribe, like and follow the show. Let's get into it. Alban, what's up? I'm good, how are you? How's your week been? Good, good, busy week, lots of cool stuff. We won another award from the-- Another one. I need to make more room, more space behind me on my shelf. More awards. But yeah, really honored for this one. This is for the Hollywood and Pixels digital film marketing campaign awards ceremony. Our Center's project, Warner Brothers. Amazing. It's a lot of bronze. So, yeah, always happy to give these awards. Always thankful that when the industry recognizes cool, innovative work. Yes. And then-- That's how it gets. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. And also, last week, I was up in San Francisco for a day. I went to an AI marketing conference. Okay. Which was interesting. It was just all these different CMOs and leaders from these big brands. And about different AI companies, basically talking about how AI is like affecting every single part of the marketing world. Everything from like the early stages of strategy to gathering data. And then asset creation and everything involved. Exactly. I mean, we'll deep dive. I feel like a lot of our news this week is AI focused. So, what only did dive into some of the-- Actually, some of the things are happening for a lot of agencies and brands around that. Yep. Let's crack into it. Let's go to the news. So, for my first story, I have Walmart bringing commerce to chat GPT. Did you see that this week? I have, yes. I've followed Justin on LinkedIn. So, I saw a few things coming up from his feed. But tell me more about it because I haven't-- I knew you were going to talk about it. So, I haven't delve into what it meant. And, you know, what does that look like? It's really exciting. And it's something that we talked about at that AI conference a lot. But essentially, Walmart has partnered with OpenAI to bring commerce inside of chat GPT. And they're describing it as a AI first shopping experience. So, this first is-- it's coming out pretty soon. They didn't say exactly when, but probably in the next couple weeks or so. Okay. So, it's available to SAMs club members first, and then they're going to roll it out more broadly. Nice. But they're really talking about this shift in a retail experience from being reactive to proactive. And this is the quote I thought was really interesting. They're saying, "It learns, plans, and predicts helping customers anticipate their needs before they do." So, I don't know. Does that scare you? Or do you think that's cool? I think it's quite good because it's Walmart at the end of the day. And I think it probably will know, I don't know, you go through two cartons of milk every week. Therefore, they might prompt you that it's time to buy it again. Proact it. I don't know. I feel like Amazon does that a little bit already when they have like push notification. But it's not as like-- it's not as perfect. So maybe this is something that will make the experience better. I don't mind that. I don't mind, I think. Yeah. No, it could be helpful. And I think-- you gotta get props to Walmart because historically, they've led commerce in immersive platforms. I just want to kind of point out how they're rolling out the Unity SDK. So basically, any game that is running on Unity can incorporate this-- the ability to sell Walmart products inside. So that's at scale. And then, in addition to that, in the UDC Gaming platforms, they're also leading. And then this is work that the, you know, Software's and Geek partnered with Roblox on or Walmart on in order to bring commerce into Roblox, Zepeto, and Spatial. So this is like just more of this innovative commerce leadership that the company is doing. And I think what's interesting to me is that this is a new kind of shopping. This is like an edge agentic sort of AI shopping. If you think about the concept of shopping and commerce, it's like, you know, it's all based on search. So right now users like go onto the internet. They search for a brand. They go to websites. They get to see all the different options. They kind of pick what they want. And then they just hit purchase and it shows up at their house. That's something that works. It's something that people really like. So this is a shift to where you're having conversations with chat GPT in your daily life. And maybe all of your shopping will happen inside of chat GPT. So not only can you like review different clothing items and make your purchases inside of that, but the agent will know who you are and what kind of style you like and what you need in your life. And it should be curating all these options for you and then pitching those solutions. So can you imagine where we have a world where we don't go to websites to shop anymore. It's all happening with our agents and our AI. What are your thoughts? That is probably closer closer to a reality. And we think I feel like the number of people that are now deciding on the shopping behavior. I feel like it really is changing, you know, the initial funnel that we have, which is like the awareness of the product engagement, et cetera. I think like now you have a much shorter timeframe where you can get the information through chat GPT. You tell them exactly what you want and it gives you recommendation. And I think the last bit is probably the purchase that needed to be solved. But I think at some point there's going to be this. There's obviously going to be a shift in how brands are thinking about their DTC, their websites, the content that they put together to make sure that people can find more easily or those LLMs can find more easily the information that's going to make them recommend product and consumer. So and just to point out right on Walmart, whether they've been leading when it comes to immersive platform like Roblox and so Pato, as you mentioned. And I think it's really important to remember that even back, you know, back in e-commerce, beginning of e-commerce, they were already leading and they are one of the largest e-commerce retailers as well behind Amazon. So it's a good signers for other retailers that if Amazon is doubling down within these types of platform and these type of new shopping experiences. This is because there's enough data on their side to say that this is a new way that people and new consumers are going to want to shop. Yeah, absolutely. I think we, I think this is definitely going to be successful. And I think there's going to see a lot of quick adoption. So let's keep an eye on it. But what do you got for your story? Well, very aligned to your first story, but this is with WPP that this week has announced a five years partnership. They already had a partnership with Google, but this is an extension of their existing partnership. 400 million partnership with Google that essentially is going to embed their AI products such as Gemini and other video generator like Vio within the ball WPP owned AI. So that's called WPP opened something to I guess highlight before we to deep dive into the partnership itself WPP has been I would say struggling for the last couple of months and actually their share price has been as at the lowest since 28 so since the financial crisis of 28. I think a lot of reason behind has been loss of clients. I think they haven't been able to catch up with a lot of other agencies like public is arguing really well at the moment around adapting their processes and offering involving AI. So WPP is now catching up with their new CEO send your rose and this is the first partnership that she's doing in a first initiative to essentially bring back WPP to the excellence and I guess the growth that we know them know them to have to deep dive a little bit into what this partnership is going to tell it's essentially I guess an integration on a lot of the Google AI tools within their own processes. But they also are putting a focus in a lot of the press release I could find in the production of content and this is something that Nick we discussed like we I think I was one of my bets actually which was one of the Intel one of the I guess the objective behind it is being able to create more content that's going to be more customized to consumers meaning that you might have a main video a main storyline. But the storyline changes slightly or the messaging slightly and it is a lot more tailored to the individual that is consuming. that content. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think every agency, every company needs to be leveraging AI into their workflows. And I think it's smart when you partner with like the AI leaders and you leverage the models that they have and the offerings that they have. So yeah, it seems like a no-brainer to me. Absolutely. What do you have next? So next, I have a fun one, short one, but it's McDonald's. They have a new partnership with Street Fighter 2, which is like the coolest thing I've seen in a while. So there's these new commercial spots that have come out and they look exactly like the old school 16-bit Street Fighter 2 game. Have you seen these? I have, yes. They're amazing. They look super dope. It took me right back to 1991 when I bought the Super Nintendo game of Street Fighter 2 and brought it home and put it in my super NES. It was awesome. So this campaign is definitely leaning into nostalgia. There's a ton of people online that are talking about it that are having a lot of fun with it. And it's essentially promoting three new burgers that have come out. Each one inspired by a different character. So Ryu, he's got the Burnt Garlic Manage and Egg Teriyaki Burger. Chun Lee, he's got the Fried Chicken and Sweet and Sour Mayo Sandwich. And Ken he just has a triple-choose burger, which I'm not mad at. But if you think that some of those descriptions of burgers are a little odd, you would be right. Those are Japanese inspired sort of flavors that you see at the burger joints out in Japan, like most burger and whatnot. Yeah. They're awesome. But this is campaign is only for Japan. So this, unfortunately, if you don't live in Japan, you won't be able to take advantage of the food or the campaign. But yeah, what do you think about all this? I love it. I think it's quite interesting. Japan, the Japanese market, for gaming, we know that they are a little bit more traditional. With Nintendo, there is a lot of nostalgia and the game that they play. The top games are still within the Switch. So I don't know. And they still have a very arcade culture there, all classic games there. So I just feel like this is, this just feels right for the markets. And again, it goes back to what you and I often talk about. It really, you can, every brand can get into gaming, but McDonald has been very clever at, you know, if we do something in the US, let's do something on Fortnite. And if we do something in Japan, we'll actually less tap into nostalgia culture because we know that this is what works. They've really been adapting their gaming strategy to the markets that they are targeting. So I still recommend that you can still find the videos online. So go check them out because I thought they were really cool, like really funny. And the trip to Chisburger is calling my name. So I'm very, very sad that this is not coming here. Yeah, they're bad ass. What do you got last story? The last story, also a short one, but I thought that was actually really groundbreaking. And in a platform that we don't speak about a lot, it's which is Twitch. So the beauty company, Elf, has for the first time tested shoppable Amazon ads on Twitch. This is the first one that they are rolling out this type of ads. And Elf is the first brand to essentially make the most out of it. You can now have an ad that allows you to buy the product directly onto Twitch without having to get out of your livestream or the content that you're currently watching. Do you think the Twitch community Twitch users want to shop while they're using that? I feel like because I think Twitch is a little bit different, I would say, than like VOD, where you are very focused on the content and every time an influencer is telling you a product, very like it happens. There's always going to be product where you like let me continue and open a new tab to be able to get information about this product for Twitch. Or at least that's purely an ad, it's something that I have on the background on a second screen and that I'm doing something else because you're in there for hours. So I don't think people like active, like there's a few moments probably of hype moments where people are really engaged and they're on the chat. But I feel they probably have a livestream, a companion on their second screen and it could be something that's for the right product and obviously the right consumer. It could be that actually the product responds exactly to a need. I think I'm more interested to see how Amazon is, you know, we were talking about Walmart and how they are going to gather, I guess, inside to know if and when someone needs a product. Amazon has similar kind of volume of data and I think this is the first time that I'm seeing, I guess the Amazon technology making it on Twitch. I feel like Twitch has always been a little bit like separate to the Amazon family. So maybe there is something that can be a little bit more connected. I don't know, I think I haven't seen any of these ads so I don't know how the UI works at the moment but I'm hoping that this is something that's, you know, they're aware that the person has hadn't bought a specific product and if that ad comes up that maybe more likely, more likely chance for them to buy it. Not sure how that will play out but I feel like this Twitch is the right platform to probably shop compared to like a VOD. Yeah, I think if you do something that's like heavily targeted, you know, it's like this type of game and we've got streamers covering that and it's items that are relevant to that that are limited that are available on Amazon. Like you make that connection and then you get a lot of traffic and you get those direct sales. I think something that makes sense. I think, you know, selling toilet paper or something on in this way, like I don't think anyone is going to do that. So let's see what happens. No, probably not. If probably we'll be like, I don't know, we'll see. Like I think that that's where, that's where Alpha not too show how had that before. I'm assuming because they're not shouting out about the numbers that it's not, you know, we're not talking about millions of units that have been sold but I think it's still quite interesting because I think Twitch was, you got to start somewhere with innovation. You got to start somewhere and then this is the first innovative thing that we're seeing from Twitch coming up in a while. So I'm excited for the platform because I think it was getting eaten by the TikTok lives, YouTube lives in general. So maybe your resurgence, let's see. Yeah, well, we'll keep our tabs on it. But let's keep moving. I'm excited because I, Albanne, I'm a fan of Sesame Street. You know, it's been around forever and you know, it's impacted my life, my kids' lives. And I'm curious about this real time review. So Albanne, please take us to Sesame Street. Let's go to the real time review. Let's go. So as you mentioned, this week I am reviewing Sesame Street neighborhood adventure. So I'm, I, I've did a bit of research. So I'm obviously familiar, more with the Cookie Monster. And I think like separate characters, but I've never watched a show because it's, I think it's more, it's more popular. It's an American show. So I, I didn't get a chance to grow up with it. But what caught my attention immediately is, and I'll go into it in the pros, but that was the quality of the, the design that was made. So that's the first and I call my attention. And I just going to give you a bit of a debrief on what the, what the experience is. So it's on Roblox. It is a five plus experiences. And I think that does make a lot of sense with the target audience that they have. So they're looking to engage with not the 13 plus audience that we know Roblox has has a lot of. They are targeting the eight year old, the five year olds, the really young adults that are currently on this platform. And probably tapping into the nostalgia of parents, like you Nick that might have seen the IP previously and tapping into into that. So at the moment, they have a 1.7 million visit, which I would say is quite good, and knowing that it has just recently launched. For people that are a bit like me and didn't know the background, I just wanted to give a bit of insights on the series itself. So Sesame Street is an American Educational Children TV series. So it's previous, it's known for the TV, for being on TV, it started in 1969. So quite an old IP. And it's used, it's essentially an educational show to teach preschool children about how to make friends, how to be on like, a living society. Different, like really interesting topic. And the characters that are in this show puppets and they are known as the Muppets. And I think this is the ones, some of the characters that we know them more for. So tapping into that in nostalgia and there are four key characters that I think are quite beloved. But Nick, let me know, we have a big bad almost famous one. The words the most famous one. Cookie Monster is the one that I'm more familiar with, but because it's on FamiliGuy a few times. He's kind of crazy, but he's up there. I'm more familiar with Cookie Monster because it's made it to other IPs that I'm more familiar with. And then Oscar, Oscar the Grouch. And what the game is about, you have essentially you interact with several characters. There's a lot of tasks that you have to do. And you then collect stickers. You have an album of stickers. So again, it really plays into the nostalgia of, you know, I still remember I did that, like collecting stickers and exchanging it with your friends. So it really plays into that nostalgia for parents in the hope that they would, you know, allow or from their children to play that game. What is also really interesting is that they have two separate worlds that are connected and they have two portals. For I would say more complex, maybe older, a little bit of an older, I don't think fire roles will be, I'm a mystic in, but I feel like this is more for an older, like maybe eight year old audience. So they have two separate worlds that is connected to this main one that have mechanics that are a little bit more complex. They're called Sesame Street Maker Building, which is also referring to the iOS app and then Summer Simistreet Mechanic Big Bestie. So that's quite interesting again. They've made two things that were a little bit more complex in case the audience, like the person that's playing wants something a little bit more challenging that what is the main game, which is essentially finders, thinkers in the game and talking to characters. So what was good? I think this is the first time where I was really, I actually actually know, first time was what you guys have done with a Trenure Dragon, but this is probably the second time where I'm really amazed of the level of quality of graphics that you can have on Roblox. When I saw the trailer, I immediately knew that I wanted to do our review on this one, because I just, I think I would advise any brand that's currently a bit skeptical about how their brand is going to be perceived. And you know, there's still thing that Roblox is very blocky, very cartoonish. Go check this experience out, because it really shows you the level of graphics that you can get. It really is like nothing I've seen before, on probably on lack what you guys have done with a Trenure Dragon, but it really is on the same level, I would say. I had the same thought. 100% when I saw it, I was like, is that a Roblox game or is that a different life than a mobile game? What am I looking at? When I saw the trailer, I was like, this is not on Roblox. It's so good. It looks fantastic. Really fantastic. The other thing that I thought, it really felt like a proper game that you could have on Steam. The other thing that I thought was really great. My pet peeze on time is that we have a lot of dialogues with characters on other games, but they're not, they're not dubbed. So you have to read the text and the exchange between your character and their character. All of the exchange are dubbed. So there's a voiceover that reads essentially the text of the character that is telling you. So this is another, I guess, even more resources that they've put into it, but it just made everything a lot more immersive and what you expect when you're engaging with a character in any other AAA games. When it comes to the bad, what was bad, was it innovative? Outside of, I would say, the high fidelity. It's not a new concept to bring a TV show for kids on Trolloblox. I think more and more IP are doing that at the moment. I wouldn't say that it is particularly innovative. I think while I really liked the fight that it was considering the nostalgia and the candidness of the environment, they were probably more targeting parents to make sure that they knew that this was a safe environment for their children. I think they could have at least had some free UGC element. Everything was about collecting stickers. I don't know if this is something that's just as a whole Roblox community, even the five year olds are really drawn to. I think this is quite sweet, but I feel like they should have had added a little bit of a UGC, like a free UGC element. Two, I guess just respond to the culture on how, in general, users are engaging and how they feel rewarded. That was my only, I would say, bad side, but because this is targeted to five year olds, I just felt like this was a proper, well-rounded experiences. My only comment would be like digging into little bits what are the key motivators of the community, even the five year olds. I think they still want to customize the avatar after spending a bit of time in the environment, and I think that that was a bit of a miss for me. One question I have for you was, is it educational, the experience, because the content and the show is all based, it's a straight up educational show where kids are learning about the alpha bed and math. Does it feel like I would say it's more because you're helping every character? So I, like, I'll have to probably reengage with it in a way to understand, like I think I've played maybe like half an hour. Like the first half hour of gameplay for now, I'm more about meeting all the characters. There are a few that already teach you lessons around sending letters to your friends, sending them love so you can get stickers in return or helping someone to find a lost object so they give you a sticker in return. It's a lot of, like, I guess, little services. I'm sure there's, I guess, as you engage with the game, maybe there will be more like powerful, pertinent lessons, but for now, for now it's been a very like, surface level. Okay. Yeah, off to jump in and check it out because it's great. And I really enjoyed it. I thought just because it's really pretty and again, like everything is dubbed. So I was just like, you just listen to the text and it's a great learning. Yeah, nobody wants to read. Like no one wants to read inside these games, especially like younger kids. So that's a part of it. It just makes it, it just makes it, it's that additional level of detail that just makes it even more engaging that I think that that is my pain point, by the way, with all the switch, a lot of switch games are not dubbed. They are like with the text and like a little like mousey micey noise in the background. So I just love that they went the additional layer to actually dub everything. It just made everything a lot more massive and engaging with the characters. And let's move on to our interview. We are so excited to have Megalie Eur, the Senior Vice-President of Global Gaming Strategy at Densu. So let's have her on the show. Let's go. We are delighted to welcome today Megalie Eur, Senior Vice-President of Gaming at Densu. Before joining them, Megalie was the global content and partnership lead for Game Publishers at YouTube Gaming. She will have passion for game and expertise to Densu to help brands create innovative and impactful solution in the gaming space. We're really excited to have Megalie join us today to discuss how large agencies like Densu are integrating gaming as part of their client's marketing strategy. Megalie, welcome to Brands & Play. Thank you so much, Evan. What a nice intro. Really appreciate it. Absolutely. We're so excited to have you today. We have so many topics and questions that we'd love to deep dive on, but first, I would love maybe for you to give our listeners an introduction of a bit more introduction on your background and what you do currently at Densu. Yeah, that sounds great. So I'm going to start by saying that I always like to say that I started my career at age six when I picked up my first video game because I've been really obsessed and single-minded since then. So I knew this space would be my career trajectory. And like you. What was the game? Yeah, I was going to ask. Streets of rage. Oh, Streets of rage, classic. You can be very classic. Then I went into a Duke Newcomme 3D, Doom, like, yeah, I was the success. And then I really, I would say, I really got lost into all of the beauty of the Final Fantasy franchise and I played all of them. Yes. That's one of my first love as well. What about you, Nick, actually? I was really impressed with the game. What's been interesting is that a Densu. So gaming has been a round two degree at Densu for a few years. But we really came together as a center of excellence in the past two and a half years. Almost like three years, I believe. And that was. And I'll talk a little bit more about how we came to be. But for me and my team, we focused on the global gaming strategy. So it's almost like the meat of everything that we do as a center of excellence in gaming. So what we end up doing is we walk with both. And we walk with both endemic and nonendemic gaming brands. And usually with the nonendemic gaming brands, we help them connect with endemic gaming publishers and connect with. players in the way that feels really authentic and meaningful and culturally resonant, right? We know gamers very well, we are all gamers. And because we really come from that space first and foremost, that's, you know, what we strive to do at Densu is just making sure that all of the clients across industries can do it right in space. Well, you guys are making some awesome impact. It's exciting to see. But I just want to take one step back. I mean, looking at Densu, it's one of the biggest agencies in the world. I would say it's like a legacy agency. It's been around for a long time doing a lot of traditional marketing. Like, I guess my question would be, you know, why is Densu taking such a focus on gaming? Yeah, I love that question. I think, honestly, it goes back to our origin stories. We were born in mid-Japan in 1901 and our promise as always been that we're going to be innovating in ways that actually can move the needle for our clients. And that's what we call innovating to impact at Densu. And today, that shows up in the full end-to-end model on what we do things across media, creative, CXM. So we can choose really outcomes while staying at the front edge of what people and where people spend time. So we know that culture is the operating system today. It's the operating system of media and everything that we end up doing. And so when you think about allocating budget with that culture piece in mind, gaming to us become a non-negotiable because we know that it's where identity and a lot of the fandom shows up daily. And when we know and we look at that pool and we talk about that, we've clients off and right, like look at the billions of players that are here today. And I think New Zealand is reporting almost like projecting 3.7 billion gamers by the end of 2025. That's also why we thought about building a center of excellence for gaming at Densu is that realization that it's not niche anymore. And we all understand that we live in that space where we need to destigmatize how we think about gamers and really just think about how can we sit in every single room as we're speaking about the next thing in planning for the brands, the next thing in creative ideation of customer experience across all of the categories. So for us that realization of we just need to break through and just make sure that gaming is not a subculture anymore and that we can have everyone think about it as a behavioral set instead. So that's where our team steps in and that's why we're in existence today at Densu is again just like making sure that these authentic peace and passion of culture exist across all of the planning that we do for brands. That's awesome. I just have a quick follow up. So I mean you guys understand that you're explaining it to brands and you're building these campaigns. What percentage of the clients that you work with understand the significance of gaming going into these conversations. I'm just curious. Yeah, that's a loaded question and that's a long one because it really depends on the maturity of the brand. Right? There are some brands that have done as you very well know like who have done very early on like first-term market opportunities within the gaming space and that I've had like a little bit of a taste of what that might mean. And there are others that when you talk about gaming might default to thinking about oh gaming is esports and we need to do we need to slap our logo on you know a couple of different teams and leagues and organization. And it's really just like understanding what is that definition. It's a lot about speaking the same language at the end of the day. Right? Like what do you mean by gamers? Who are we talking to? How are we trying to engage with them? And also what is the current audiences that this specific brand is dealing with? So I think there's a lot of nuance in that question. It's based on brand maturity, definition within the brand teams and kind of audience reality. And that's how you know yeah that's how we're going to be thinking about it. Why do you think brands are not getting a like why now? Because it's not it's nice if this is something new and that people have just starting to play games but I'm just curious to understand what do you think are the biggest shifts that's happened like in the most recent years that would explain why brands are not getting involved. Was it all the pandemic? They've done that or is there other signals that also have supported that? Yeah, I yeah absolutely. So I think there are two things that really collided. One you mentioned the pandemic. It really made gaming feel less like a pastime and more like a connective tissue. And that's really how I see it right? Because we sometimes spend spiking that really reset how people socialize and discover culture at that time. I looked back at some number and I saw that Neilson I think was saying that 82 percent of consumer were playing games or watching gaming content during lockdowns which is pretty wild. Second, I mean think about it but during that time and also right before the pandemic that's when the metaverse era was emerging right? Yeah, metaverse was like the key word in everybody's mouth. And it was a proof point because at that time the reason why metaverse was such so top of mind, I mean there was like so many platforms that were starting to kind of bubble up at that time. But there was also those moments where Fortnite with or I began to Fortnite came up with the Marshmallow cancer concert in 2019 right before the pandemic hit right? And then they kind of doubled down on it. They went into hey we're going to make this Travis Scott concert make a big moment out of it. So the astronomical moment with Travis Scott in Fortnite, I think it pulled in roughly I think almost 30 million unique attendees in April 2020. Then they followed that up with the Ariana Grande tour in 2021 and that created those like huge 10 polls and I think for brand it was that kind of like reality check of oh this is actually a big moment. This is actually driving a lot of culture in real IP moments and real measurable ways in for my brand within the gaming space or within the metaverse space as we were talking about it at the time. And at that time we also saw in parallel which is correlating with that right as metaverse spaces. That's when we saw Roblox really just starting to spike. Yeah. With daily active going from 2020 30 million daily active users to 50 million in 2021 to almost 120 today. Like it's pretty right to think about that. But at that moment that's when also a couple of brands started to say hey we're going to be first to market you know Aloya Gaguchi like as you're very familiar with all of those brands stepping into Roblox and starting to harness the power of I think press at the time and kind of like that hotness moment of you know let's be the first in it. But also just realizing that there is there is an actual shift there right. And then with that I think there was the creator piece and that was also driven by the pandemic because everyone was watching gaming content. And so brands starting taking notice that creator program and creator's movement were like way beyond just one of and that needed to be something that should be thought through over time. So trying to kind of bring it all together to answer your question why are brands living in now. I think it's because the reality is that the audience is there. The foreman's have been proven with all of the pandemic you know moments that we've been seeing. And the those like creators scalable programs have also been proven in that space. So the shift that we've been living through is that brands are moving from you know that those splashy first to more durable plays. Thinking about how can I make gaming more of an ongoing part of my media or marketing strategy versus just seeking those like pure headlines. And Negle you alluded to this earlier that gaming is so broad right. You got like eSports and you've got you just in gaming platforms and you've got like AAA you know how should a brand approach that you know there's so many lanes they can take what you know how how do you help them identify what those strategies and those past should be. Yeah I I stopped with the audience first always. And when I say audience first I just so you know I'm really allergic to forcing people into the generic gamer personas. I think those out there. I don't mean anything. It's like someone has watches a movie. There's so many nuances. Exactly. I told you a great plus I feel like every single brand I mean again I will not ever stop saying that everybody is a gamer you know everybody is a gamer is just figuring out how do they game and how do they play. And so we've brands and we know that they already have really rich audience segments. We've a lot of data points so we start there but we're going to go almost like a layer down. We're going to look at how do those people actually game and when I say game I don't mean just play right. We're going to look at what do they watch where do they hang out how do I connect with their peers and of course how do they like to play and what do they like to play. But if they're in the watch mode we're going to lean into you know how can we create those like creator program in moments that are going to move the needle. Maybe it's going to be thinking about more premium gaming media at that time so that we can have those moments to earn attention. And when they're ready to play, we're going to build lightweight, replayable mini games activation, that could be a Roblox activation, etc. And when it's a connect moment, we're going to think about, you know, spaces like Discord, we're going to think about more of those social spaces. And I want to call that also again Roblox and Fortnite as like a lot of those newer social media spaces, especially where gamer we know like to connect and spend a lot of time today. But truly we're going to think about those different states and there is like a slew of tactics that can and channel that we can activate against that. So it's not a one size fits all ever. It's going to be audience first. How do we extract the right insights? And how do we use that in tactics and in ways that is going to drive measurable impact for the brand? I love that you're already segmented. It's something I've never thought about. It's not only segmented the audience about like demographic and who they are and how they play, but also their like then mindsets. So are they more in the space of socializing or they're more in the space of like being entertained? I think that's quite an interesting way as well of looking at it because as you mentioned, there's so many platforms in which a gamer will have different expectation from a brand. I wanted to maybe zoom in a little bit onto Roblox. So you mentioned an I really agree that this is also a new a new social platform and then Sue has been one of the agencies partners of Roblox. Can you tell us a little bit more about this partnership and also why Roblox was a platform that then she wanted to specifically focus on? And then maybe a follow up question is whether there is another platform that you also have you eye on additionally to Roblox? Yeah, the short answer there is that I mean Roblox really feed our innovation DNA. I mean that partnership was perfect for that. When these two of their partner program and all of the immersive ads, we join as a funding agent. The only holding call I believe at the time so that we could learn and test new formats for client in a way that was evolving within a maturing environment and also just like a growing platform because I think the community was I mean, every year it changed pretty drastically. But so we had all of those data points and it made a lot of sense. That gives us early access to format, third party measurement and again, first to market opportunity, which was perfect for what we want to do with our clients. Now I do want to zoom out because like you said, and when you're asking the question about like what else like what are the platform moving forward to us Roblox is a pioneer, but not the only bet ever, right? We're seeing the same trajectory happening elsewhere. Fortnite, we view FN, they're evolving really fast. We are seeing that, you know, a lot of the stuff that they're doing, we've like now including native item sales, et cetera. It's also something to consider and that's something that we've been very close to you. But also let me talk about more of that future state. But as we're thinking about 2026 for instance, one of the space and I'm going to just pick for myself and not just for Dan Sue as a whole. But one of the space that really interests me is GTA 6. I believe that GTA 6 is going to become that next platform for GST. And that's what all of the rumors are pointing to you. And I think that they are really standing on the shoulder of what Roblox and Fortnite have been proving up until now. So for us, it's not a one platform approach. We're always platform agnostic at Dan Sue. And we think about partnership with the consumer mindset first and foremost for the benefit of our brands. I'm aligned again with you. I think the moment that a platform starts to have a creator economy strategy. This is when it starts to become really interesting for for agencies as well to develop those specific partnerships for brands. Yeah, I'm also like blown away by the opportunities that GTA 6 will offer. So let's just see what happens. Let's just wait next year. And I think that's the only thing that's right that they actually really said next year. But we'll see. Hopefully they don't kick it out another year. Well, I just yeah. I mean, there's too much excitement already. We don't need more pressure. Yeah, that's fair. So I would say that I think when it comes to these large holding companies, Dan Sue is leading in my opinion, doing a lot in gaming. And we also see other stuff like, you know, Publisys and WPP also, you know, doing work as well. But, you know, what advice would you give to whole co's in general about the perspective on gaming and marketing? Well, first, thank you so much. I love to see and hear that you think that Dan Sue is one of the leaders there. I think it speaks to all of the world that we've been doing in the team. But I would say that I think the only way that a lot of agencies should look at marketing and gaming is through that community lens first, right? And that's something that, you know, we, I talked about it at length, but we just want to make sure that we're starting with that consumer and, you know, gamer had on first and foremost. And that's how I truly think that that's how you earn your way into culture. People can smell inauthentic a mile away. So the work has to be built with that community in mind at all times. Now, I also want to go back to the reality that I cannot speak for other old companies, right? My only experience has been at Dan Sue in a big old info. But I can tell you that at Dan Sue, we lean in again because of our DNA, because of the fact that we are born in media that were completely obsessed with culture and that we are set up in the way where we know we can evolve really fast. We have got that scale to actually do it properly across multitudinal areas. And because we're platform agnostic, we are, we can really be centered around what are the players expecting first and foremost and then focus on platform and format next. Two things that really makes a big difference to us is our craft paired with speed. We know that culture moves really fast today. So for us, it's all about staying on top of that, making sure that we are testing fast, making sure that we are failing fast in some instances if we need to just have those learnings and be able to iterate really fast. And the other piece is, you know, having some measurement with teeth. So brand-leafed and thinking about incrementality on paid, thinking about key attribution with creators and how can we move the needle for brands and actually provide real outcomes is also the name of the game for us. So we are making sure that we're following the rules of the current ecosystem and platform that we have to play with, but we also make sure that we understand what are the boundaries that we have to play with. What are, what can we actually measure? How can we break through the mold and do things differently in some instances? And again, how can we learn and iterate in a way that moves at the speed of culture? I mean, the, it sells, I guess, gaming sounds almost like the magic solution, right? If you're also trying to reach a Gen A or a Gen D audience, if you're tapping into culture, you're tapping into environments that are valuable to them and they're spending time in those environments, you spoke a little bit about data points and measurement. I do wonder sometimes why we're not seeing more brands, I guess, going inside the space. Do you think what is, I guess, the, like, what's your thoughts on like what are, what are I guess the challenges or the things that need to change within the industry to see more brands coming into the space with a bit more confidence? Yeah. So I don't think data is the blocker. I think the mindset is frankly, I think that more brands are wired for control. We know that it's, it's true across category and more thinking about like polished assets and fixed narrative and tight brand guidelines. And we know that we've gaming and especially within those UGC spaces, it flips that on its head, right? You're wondering a space where the players are making the content. They're all remixing your ideas. They're moving your story forward. So that means that brands need to be OK, relinquishing some of that control and kind of paying by the community rules. Well said. And last question for me, Maggly, I'd love for you to give us a prediction. You know, how do you see this space changing like in the next five or 10 years from from an advertising and marketing standpoint? Like how do you think brands are going to be involved in gaming and how do you think culturally gaming will evolve? Yeah, I think if the last couple of years I've been in the indication, UGC is becoming king and UGC platform is becoming king because it is the new social media spaces for newer generation and even the more matureing audiences now, right? So I think the center of gravity is going to be UGC. And with that, I think it's less going to be about rich for brand. I think it's going to be about participation and I think engagement is going going to be the key success metric. And I think what that means for brand is that we need to design systems that celebrate fans and that celebrates all of their stories and their plays in a way that walks into your media funnel. So it's how do you create sort of the brand guidelines to give that free, freedom so that the consumer can actually lead your story and you can kind of step away and let them create your brand assets. - I love that. That's a future I would love to live in. (laughing) - Why love it? What about you, Nick? What are you thinking for the future? I'm curious. - The future, I mean, I think I agree with everything that you said. I think there's just no stopping it. I think you look at attention. Where are the new generations going to be spending their time? And I think in general, they're going to be consuming media that is interactive. I think flat top down media, they're just going to be a little bit less of that. I still think there's going to be a place, but with technology and immersion, this some sort of like interactivity is going to be everywhere. And I think brands are going to have to figure out how to insert themselves into those spaces, and the concept of a commercial is going to become way less relevant in the coming years. - Yeah, yeah, totally agree. I guess we can see what SoHorse actually has in the work for those next steps. - We are experimenting with a lot of fun stuff. A lot of fun, immersive marketing, which is what gets me out of bed in the morning. (laughing) - Love it. - Yeah, but Maghalle, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate your insights, and we're excited to see what you and the Densu team continue to do and what impact that you're going to be making over the next few years. - Thank you so much for having me. I hope we can continue the, all of those concession later, and really love what you guys are doing too at SoHorse, and can't wait to see what you have in the works for the future. - Right on. Yes. - Thank you. - Thank you so much. Let's go back to the show. (upbeat music) And we're back. Albanne, what did you think about that interview? - I'm so glad that we managed to get Maghalle, and she's incredibly busy, so I feel really privileged that we had her on the show. I think my key takeaway here is probably how, it's nothing new to be fair, but it's just a good reminder, I think for agency so brands, that game, like how Densu is looking at gaming as part of consumers' fandom, and tapping into just overall fandom, whether that is being explored, music, entertainment, gaming is also a key pillar. So I think I'd just really like, I guess, how she integrated that as part of an overall, like entertainment strategy, so that was really interesting. - Yeah, super interesting. I mean, she's obviously really sharp and understands this space. Well, I always enjoy talking to her. And I think in general, I just, I love what Densu is doing. You know, I think they're one of the companies that's leaning in the most. One of these large agency hold coals, and they've got a plan and they're executing on it. So I love seeing it and I'm curious to see kind of how that grows like in the coming years. - Absolutely. And now I'm incredibly excited. This is your turn to do your hit, Miss and Bet. - Let's go. - What do you have for us? - So my hit, I don't know if you saw this, but PlayStation did a collaboration with Reebok to do a 30th anniversary. - I did see it. - You saw it, right? - Yes, yeah. - Super cool. So it's celebrating 30 years of gaming and 90s culture with these limited exclusive sneakers to honor the legacies of both Reebok and PlayStation. And the designs are super sick. They're basically the colors and the stylings of the old school PlayStation console. And those of you listening, they were too young and missed that whole thing. It's basically like a simple gray rectangle that had some little circular shape. And the design was very simple, but this sort of look and feel and colors have been ported over to these shoes and it reminds me of the console when I look at it. And I was just, yes, over the weekend, I was in Costco and they were selling the new PlayStation. And I looked at this thing and I was like, I don't even recognize this. This looks like a spaceship from the future. But let's move on to my miss. This week my miss unfortunately is the new Apple Vision Pro. So do you see this announcement? - I can't even know they're reading this a new one. - Well, look, it's not out yet. I think it's been announced and it's coming soon or whatever. But the big change is on this one, it has a M5 chip inside, which is a better chip than the current one. And that's gonna hopefully allow for better performance. I would say in general, the performance is already really good. I have one. - I was gonna say why? - Right. So it's like one of those things. It's like an iPhone upgrade. It's like, yeah, it's better, but better from good is what, right? - Yeah. - So there's that. And then the other big announcement thing that they're bringing out is a more comfortable headband. And right now the band, it kind of wraps on the back of your head. - Yes. - This one is gonna go on top of your head and on back of your head. So now you have more things like, you know, disrupting your head. - Okay. - So this thing has metal essentially. - Yeah. And it's supposed to like balance the weight a little bit more. So it's more comfortable to wear for longer periods of time. They've also extended the battery life a little bit, like not massively, but you know, you get a little bit more charge in there. So those were like the interesting things. But there's like two strikes against it right out the gate. Cause one, it's even heavier than before. They did not drop way. - That's why you need to pat it away. - It's actually gonna come, it's not gonna be more comfortable. You're just gonna be able to have more stuff to like, way on to your head. - Dude, it's, I'm like, yo, I knew that that was the next step they wanted to do is to like make it lighter. Because that was such that the arrogant move from apples, like let's use the titanium or whatever material. So it looks sleek and feels amazing. We don't care about what it weighs. It's just this superior, perfect glass, the perfect, whatever. And I mean, from a user standpoint, that's not what we want. You know, like we need it to be light. If it's too heavy for our heads, there's a problem there. So surprise that they didn't like try to fix that or they didn't release a cheaper headset. Because if this was like a less powerful one for half the price, I think that would have like, you know, gotten some traction. But instead, this one has the same prices last time. $3,500, which is way more money than anyone wants to pay for these things. So I think it's a little bit of a miss. And then my bet, it just going back to the news story from earlier about how commerce is coming into these chatbots. I do think that this will become a new way to shop and people will adopt it quicker than we think. I do think a lot of people will just sort of start leveraging and leaning on these AI agents to help them with their shopping, whether that's shopping for food, you know, on a weekly or like as like a stylist, like an AI stylist. Like this is the way I want to look for this event. I need a bunch of options, you know, like this is what's interesting to me. And then they'll just start feeding, you know, results. But, you know, I would say like in the next six months, I would not be surprised if we saw Amazon Shopify and Walmart integrated into all the leading AI chatbots across the landscape. Well, we'll revisit it in six months and see how wrong or right I was. But that's a wrap for this week. Exactly, that is it for this week. So thank you so much to everyone for tuning in. We appreciate it. Yeah, thanks everybody. And next week we're excited to have Ross Cromp, founder and CEO of the social creative agency ardent on the show. So that's going to be good. That's right. That's it. Edward, please read us out. And that was Brands in Play. Thank you for joining the podcast. We'll be exploring muscle marketing and the people who are leading it. Toast by Albandon Lupe and Nick Hill. I'll show you today which produced by myself a degree of radio with Creative Direction by Joey Jeter and Javit Chaspe and audio engineering by someone Kew. As well as a massive shout out to Ben Carroll. He should have joined us every week for brand new episodes. The view thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the hosting guests. They 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 information 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 with any organization mentioned.