Game Christmas Shopper Simulator

Content marketing is about more than features and e-books. Yesterday Content24 looked at Coca-Cola using technology in a link-up with Microsoft; today we examine how UK retailer Game has pushed this idea further. Also we return to Black Friday and a big predicted increase in B2B spend

Game offers free ‘Christmas Shopper’ simulator

Game, the UK games retailer, has created Christmas Shopper Simulator 2: Black Friday as a free download for Mac and Windows. Play sees a character running around a large department store while having to deal with manic shoppers, obstacles and products that run away from them. The focus is on the nightmare of shopping.

This is a follow-up on a similar initiative last year, when the video supporting the game got more views than the John Lewis Christmas ad.

One advantage of investing in a game like this is the ability to hang other marketing around it. In Game’s case they have created a page making fun of the project, describing it as: “The original, ground-breaking simulator that exactly replicates the eye-gouging panic and frustration of Christmas shopping, while simultaneously being quite tedious!” In line with this it boasts that features include “GENERIC human faces, NINE sounds and THE COLOUR RED!”

How Black Friday is being marketed in the US

This piece looks at how the likes of Amazon are handling Christmas and Black Friday marketing across the Pond. Some US retailers have been using email for content marketing extensively since September in the build-up to Black Friday.

Yet there are questions surrounding its effectiveness. Other retailers have said they will not be engaging in Christmas content marketing until Black Friday.

B2B investment on the rise

Content marketing and thought leadership is the most important growth area in B2B marketing according to new research by Euromoney. Over the next few years it predicts that the current $100 billion spent on content marketing could triple.

However, there are issues. Thirty-five per cent of respondents to Euromoney’s survey said they did not know what their audience were interested in.

This links in to other issues we’ve previously spoken about such as ROI and the need for the sector as a whole to develop a collective defined strategy.