You may have heard of the extremely popular video game that has caught attention from all around the world, Fortnite. It is a free-to-play game that involves many players in a single match and a very addictive gameplay loop. With a free-to-play model, the makers of Fortnite, Epic Games, create cosmetic items that players spend real money to place on their virtual in-game character. But when a game has satisfying gameplay, a massive community of players, all for free, the need to make sales on these cosmetic items becomes a priority for Epic.
Epic Advertising
That is why it makes sense when Fortnite comes out with a new collab. Whether it is a new Marvel collab that includes various versions of famous comic-book characters playable in Fortnite, or the recent Ferrari collab, Fortnite uses its inherent problem as an opportunity for advertisers. By offering partnerships with these brands, Epic is able to create advertising for items for sale, and the partner company is able to share their brand to an audience who otherwise wasn’t paying as much attention but may still a be a relevant consumer.
With Ferrari, they can use this opportunity to add more youthful energy and make themselves more relatable to a younger generation getting old enough to consider luxury car purchases. Indeed, that likely isn’t the main advertising goal and Ferrari may also receive revenue splits on item sales. With the game generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue , item sales have clearly been lucrative.
Lessons To Learn
From observing this marketing strategy, there’s a few lessons to learn:
- Cross-promotion is a textbook example of expanding your brand.
- Promotions (in this case, Collabs) that increase the level of interactivity of their brands with the audience have a competitive advantage.
- If large, inflexible companies are able to think this much outside of the box, smaller companies can adapt a similar strategy and be able to implement an innovative digital marketing strategy faster.
Here is an example of Fortnite’s collab with popular hip-hop artist Travis Scott:
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