TVC: Changyou Games– Playing can’t be bad
By Malay Desai From: China, by Saatchi & Saatchi Around the release of its three new online games, Chinese game developer Changyou has launched a campaign with three new films. In one, a girl seems disappointed with her father who keeps playing games on his tablet, in another a boss of a small office seems concerned about a game-addict employee and in the third, a mother is worried if her game-playing son would ever get a girlfriend. In all three, a voiceover defends the online gamers as the visuals show them being harassed or treated inappropriately by the person in question around them. ‘Playing can’t be bad’, the copy toward the end of the films reads. Why we Like? There is a reason why agencies (wait, not the Indian ones) rejoice when they clinch an alcohol account, especially of beer brands. Because, apart from the boozy incentives, the scope allows them to be honest, unabashed and, well, what their departments are called, creative. Gaming, like beer, offers a similar canvas and China’s ‘leading’ online game developer has put on a straight face here to make us applaud. At a time when there are more gaming options than ever before, it’s still tough to market a game (or three, in this case) to a TA that has attention span issues and dozens of options. Moreover, with ‘scientific’ studies linking gaming to negative human behaviour appearing every week (since the 90s), the perception of gaming being ‘bad’ and the losers’ last resort keeps hanging. Changyou here had multiple goals to achieve, and has chosen an approach simple enough to bag it awards. The ‘daughter’ film is my favourite, as it speaks out the male voice hilariously – accusing a little girl of boring her dad to death by her antics. Will it be incorrect to say, will it offend some feminists, does it sound outright rude –would’ve been the questions on the makers’ minds, before they high-fived and moved on. Like in cases of beer ads and many gender-focused films of say perfumes orautomobiles, as long as your target group is laughing, it doesn't matter if the other gets offended. The ‘boss’ film is funny too, more in the treatment. Horrible bosses are a universal truth, and the situations in this one are obviously appealing to the underdog, the poor over-worked harassed officer. In the ‘mother’ film, the last on my list, the biggest TA is addressed, the teenage boy. Breaking down the perception that hardcore gamers don't get women will be an ongoing process, and by taking their side, the brand just says, ‘Relax, it’s not your fault, you carry on bludgeoning from that machine gun.’ By shifting the blame from the gamers to the people around them, are cutting out the guilt and simply saying, gaming is not bad. Well played. (To watch this film,type ‘bit.ly/ViewTube_May18’ in your browser and hit go) Social Newsfeed Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe FB’s ‘Instant Articles’ arrive If you’re a news publisher, writer or even a news consumer, here’s something you must know of carefully and chew on. Facebook has launched ‘Instant Articles,’ a platform where it is hosting content from publishers, so the user does not have to visit the latters’ site. The list of partners already includes The Guardian, BBC, New York Times, Nat Geo, Buzzfeed among others – which means that all these news giants believe in its idea, despite it meaning that an increasing number of readers will not visit their websites at all. For the publishers, there’s a promise for quality, optimised pages that load faster and most importantly, ad revenue on the platform, apart from numbers on who’s reading what from where. There’s already a chunk of stories I see, many using multimedia too, that are setting the tone for this brand new customised news platform. Will this be the future of print news or is it a bad precedent? You know which column to keep reading. Many publishers like this OYO - Ambushed offline, won the battle online Among the many rivalries of e-commerce services, the branded budget hotel space is currently heated up with an ambush marketing campaign by Zo Rooms, pitted against its more popular rival, Oyo rooms. Last month, Oyo took Zo to court over copyright violation allegations and then it faced a counter-punch at its own app launch event. Zo put up a hoarding taunting/congratulating Oyo outside the venue! Then, to respond to this real-life trolling, Oyo took to Twitter, making jokes on Zo’s infancy and thanking it for the trolling. Last Thursday, it even tweeted that the app’s been downloaded 30,000 times and thanked Zo for ‘all the trolling and noise.’ For the price-conscious Indian, this is entertainment AND useful information. Ginger Hotels likes this Pepsi’s summer hit - #crashtheIPL There are only rare occasions when I love something associated with the Indian Premier League circus. Now into its final week, the season has been the usual noisy blimp for me but for its title sponsor, it’s been one of massive social media engagement. Its campaign, Crash the IPL, invited one and all to make a 30 second Pepsi commercial themselves, which, if picked by popular choice or the jury, would air on TV during a game, apart from fetching its makers a cool 100,000 rupees and VIP tickets. Now getting users to tweet slogans is one thing and actually getting creative, funny films is quite another. All the shortlisted ads, on the microsite, say much about how the campaigned has fueled passion, riding on the national pastime. Also, did I mention that the Bhojpuri song inspired theme song is pure genius? Ranbir Kapoor likes this
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