CANNES, FRANCE — This is Part One of a series where Game On captain Rey Tiempo analyzes the winners from this year’s Cannes Lions Entertainment Lions for Gaming category, through the lens of an advertising industry veteran AND a hardcore gamer.
Note that some of this year’s winners have already been featured in a previous Achievement Unlocked segment, especially the work from this year’s D&AD. This new series will see picks from work that made their awards circuit debut in Cannes.
THE EVERYDAY TACTICIAN by Xbox / McCann
The Gaming POV
The never-ending quest (that seems to be winding down to an end sooner than we think – more on this later) for the video game experience is to get as close to reality as possible. Yes, of course the settings may often be fantastical, characters may seem totally otherworldly, situations may be utterly disparate from everyday experiences, enough to support the need for escapism. But the essential elements that make a world “work” are all still based on known realities that we humans operate under. The physics particularly are still based largely on the laws of our physical world (with our own takes, manipulations, creative licenses, etc.).
Most especially, this pursuit of reality is most evident in the evolution of video game graphics, with the advancement in technology getting better and better at dialing up visual fidelity (sometimes, it even gets TOO real, to a point where gamers now ponder, “Is too much graphical realism what we really want in games these days?”) Sports and simulation games definitely operate under reality-inspired gaming experiences (I remember feeling like I could really dunk my way to the ring ala Double Dribble’s awesomely-lowres cut scenes), and they’ve only gotten better through the years, with more mindblowingly-detailed graphics (“Hey, I can now see hi-res sweat!”) and more-engaging-than-ever-before gameplay.
I realize that is one looong intro to the point I wanted to make. But a necessary setup to this brilliant Grand Prix-worthy work from Xbox. See, while games get better at mirroring the real world, this idea mirrors the mirrored games back to reality. It’s as simple as a creatively groundbreaking idea can get (all winning gaming ideas are simple at their core, made complicated by ad agency bosses who disappointingly don’t understand gaming, but I digress.)
A gamer, who has honed his skills in running video game teams in Football Manager (a game that so realistically mirrors the experience in the real world) has been tapped to take his gaming skills back to the real world and help a very real world club get promoted to the very real EFL. It’s a crazy loop of gaming-reality convergence that totally deserves all the merit it has been earning. In a huge way, this reminds me of a similar success story of that one avid Gran Turismo gamer who eventually earned his way to race in real world racing cars, in real world circuits (the film this story is based on is an absolute blast and an underrated gem in the history of video game-related adaptations.)
The work is also a great demonstration of a winning gaming case formula: proving or disproving what gaming can or cannot do. Xbox, through the years, has been giving us some of the best examples: that gaming can help education (“Field Trips”); that game worlds can be tourist destinations (“The Birth of Gaming Tourism”); that gaming can bridge generations (“Beyond Generations”); and they can add this latest one, that gaming skills can help you land real world jobs.
Most definitely a worthy year two top prize for the Cannes Lions Entertainment in Lions Gaming category. It’s a creative gaming idea that amplifies the authentic gamer experience and celebrates it in the most authentically rewarding way. One of the best examples of a true Gaming X Marketing work that exemplifies how gaming solves problems it sometimes doesn’t even know it can.
The Advertising POV
A winning gaming case made stronger by all the traditional advertising media content it has spawned. From the documentary film series, to social, news coverage, to all of the unpaid and organic gaming and football fan-related content around it. As a way to bring in more players for the game (and to sell more copies of course), there is no better selling strategy than to actually prove the effectiveness of your product’s selling point. It’s probably one of the best pure product demo advertisements out there in recent years that’s endemically in the gaming space.
The campaign title itself is a stroke of genius – the “everyday” gamer who has honed his skills by playing “every day” has been elevated into a masterful tactician, a story that’s clearly not as “everyday” as it appears. And yet it can be, for the thousands of “everyday” gamers who can now play this game (“the most played Football Manager ever”)… well, “everyday.”
ABOUT GAME ON
Rey Tiempo is a Creative Gaming Brand Specialist. A hardcore gamer since childhood, Rey is multi-awarded creative gaming marketer, with accolades from the world’s biggest creative industry award shows. A veteran creative head with over 25 years’ experience, Rey leads the Gaming and Marketing conversation in the Philippines and Asia, as Founder of “Game On,” the first and only ad industry column and portal on Gaming X Marketing, and as Founder and Chief Creative of Co-Op Play, a team of Brand Gamification Specialists. Currently playing: Black Myth: Wukong; Kunitsu-Gami
Dennis Nierra is a Creative Director at BBDO Guerrero.
