Supercell's transmedia move

and The R&A teams up with Topgolf + Unilever tripling their gaming investment over 3 years

Author

Joe Condon
November 12, 2024

Welcome to Edition #35 of The SEG3 Report!

Today’s newsletter will dive into Supercell’s launch of a podcast, and how it’s helping to grow their IP, as well as The R&A’s latest use of Roblox to encourage gamers to play golf + Unilever’s tripling of their investment into gaming.

Contents: Edition #35

Public Service Announcement: there is now just 4 weeks to go until SEG3 Los Angeles returns! 🎉

Join us & leading executives from the likes of SEGA, NHL, Tencent, Disney, Lucasfilm, Amazon, LA28 Olympics, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Paramount, Solana, FOX, Avalanche, Discord, Logitech, Lionsgate and many more on December 11th in Beverly Hills.

Let’s dive in…

Supercell launch True Crime Podcast

The Clash of Clans "Hammer Jam" event is in jeopardy after a mysterious theft of the iconic Hammer. Fans are invited to join a true-crime-style investigation to solve the mystery, with suspects including popular characters like the Goblins and Hog Rider. The investigation unfolds in a four-part podcast series, Hammerless: A True Crime Podcast, with episodes released across over the duration of the campaign, with fans able to track clues, suspect motives, and share theories to help save the event.

Why You Should Care

Podcasting, although popular across other sections of entertainment, has perhaps been slightly underutilised as part of the transmedia mix for many game publishers - but there are signs of this changing.

Supercell’s launch of Hammer Jam (for the Clash franchise), Ubisoft with Echoes of History (for Assassins Creed) & Naughty Dog with Last of Us are all examples of major developers and publishers that have taken the leap.

And they’re all exploring podcasting for good reason - the depth of coverage it allows you to go into.

Video games are a gold-mine for their lore - it's why film adaptations can work so well as there are so many possible storylines to explore.

But with anything on-screen, there are time limitations, as well as the need to make a flowing storyline, which sometimes makes fitting all of the lore that drew fans into the franchise impossible to cover.

Podcasts give that opportunity for fans to get into the nuts and bolts of the story, the characters and theorise about the connections between games from the publisher/developer and more.

And in this day and age of abundance, superfans expect this level of detail to be available to them, or they will simply do it themselves. Just look at the number of fan-led podcasts, reddit forums, events, art etc that is brought to life each year.

There’s two ways to look at this:

  1. Allowing fans the autonomy (with support of the IP owner/holder) to create fan-made content/events

    Pro:
    - Builds a self-sustaining culture that helps to drive conversation and interest as fans engage with and expand upon the games lore, whilst also helping to take the IP to new audiences.

    Con:
    - Less control over the direction of the narrative

    OR

  2. Create the content/events that fans want, in the tone they want

    Pro:
    - Podcasts are a cost effective way to grow IP and build community that are interested in the storytelling away from just gameplay

    Con:
    - Creating a quality podcast requires consistent investment (in time & capital) to sustain engagement

For Supercell, while Clash of Clans has a massive following (10+ year player here!), the game’s lore perhaps isn’t as well known or deeply explored as some other franchises, so podcasting presents them a huge opportunity to shift the perception of the brand/IP from being a primarily gameplay focused title to being a richer IP that fans can engage with outside of just gameplay.

And with Supercell only committed to an initial 4 part series (all of which have been released in a short timeframe to encourage sustained fan engagement throughout the duration of the campaign), my opinion is that this can only be a positive move and help them to communicate more directly with fans (current & future), build hype for game updates or events and grow the overall appeal of the IP.

The R&A partners with TopGolf

The R&A has launched the "Active Play" initiative in Indonesia to introduce golf to new audiences through Roblox. Partnering with Topgolf and The Gang, players in Indonesia can engage in a virtual golf experience, "Just Swing," to win a free play session at the new Topgolf Jakarta. Players complete virtual challenges, earning real-life rewards that encourage them to experience golf firsthand, bridging digital and physical play to inspire lasting engagement with the sport.

Why you should care?

For avid readers, or attendees of SEG3 London in the summer, this won’t be the first time you’ve heard of ‘Just Swing’.

Gavin Forrester, Manager of Golf Education from The R&A shared more into their Roblox strategy at SEG3 London, and we dived into the launch of the program in Edition #16.

The main focus of Just Swing?

To encourage movement & IRL engagement with the game of golf.

And it’s proving to be successful, with over 2.3 million visits and it reaching 174 countries since the games launch, where 77% of 98,000 users said they wanted to play golf after playing ‘Just Swing’ on Roblox.

It’s clear this initiative is in line with The R&A’s strategy of taking users from the digital environment into the physical world. And that really is the holy grail for a lot of brands activating in the platform - driving action, whether that be commerce or engagement, off-platform.

So, how does it work?

For the Active Play initiative, players from Indonesia will be presented with a quest when they enter the game, which is to complete three holes. On completion, a pop-up notification will appear telling the player that they have won a free voucher for them and their friends to play for an hour at Topgolf Jakarta free of charge. The user simply takes a picture of their redemption code and shows this to the front desk at Topgolf.

The beauty of having an IRL redemption within a specific timeframe means that the R&A and TopGolf can track just how successful Roblox is in helping to drive an action off platform. 

It’s becoming a well-versed strategy we’re seeing across the platform, with Superdrug & Dubit driving 15k redemptions in-store earlier this year, as well as Sawhorse & Fandango selling tickets to the Beetlejuice movie too.

Overall, I’d be surprised if we don’t see more sports brands follow the R&A’s playbook with a similar strategy soon. Driving participation and interaction with the brand IRL is imperative for sports and brands to continue to thrive, and if Roblox and other UGC gaming platforms can help to drive action of Gen Z/A in the flesh, that is a powerful tool to be able to add to your marketing arsenal.

Unilever triple their gaming investment over the past 3 years

Why you should care

Unilever has been one of the most active brands across gaming over the past few years, with the likes of Knorr, Magnum, Dove and more having activated in UGC games or become sponsors across the wider gaming ecosystem in esports.

Despite their brands being non-endemic to the gaming ecosystem, this focus and strategy has been built on insights, and a want/need for them to support their target consumers' passion points - which more than ever is shifting to games.

This shift is shown from a 2024 study from YPulse which reveals teens in the US and Canada are spending more time gaming than watching TV – and 68% agreed they find video games more entertaining than TV shows or movies.

That shift in consumer interests is a huge thing for giant businesses like Unilever, who spend millions per year through multiple channels to help keep their brands front of mind, relevant and successful. If consumers are changing where they are spending their time, then Unilever (and other consumer brands) are going to be reallocating budgets from traditional advertising channels to more interactive and immersive advertising experiences to ensure they are where they eyeballs are.

“Gaming is the new social playground; we’re making the most of gaming’s growing appeal – particularly among Gen Z and women – to get our brands in front of new consumers. And as engagement in gaming continues to rocket, we’re deepening our relationships with those consumers through new marketing approaches and channels”.

Willem Dinger, Unilever’s Global Head of Sport & Entertainment Partnerships & Personal Care Media Lead.

Given the 400+ brands Unilever have under their banner - all with differentiated themes, storytelling & target audiences - they have the flexibility and power to be able to create nuanced campaigns and partnerships that target very different consumers that fall under the ‘gamer’ bracket, all whilst activating in a non-intrusive, authentic manner.

And with that approach, they’ll undoubtedly continue to be able to keep their brands at the forefront of culture, using gaming as the conduit.

We’ll leave you with a statement from former SEG3 London alumni Willem Dinger which we thoroughly agree with, being:

“Gaming is on the cusp of shifting to a central source of entertainment and technological advancements will continue to propel that progress. We believe there’s so much more we can achieve in gaming – and we’re just getting started”.

Games x Entertainment x Technology = Next-Generation Consumer Experiences

In other news this week…

A quick round-up of other stories you should be across from the past 7 days:

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report!

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