New Balance, the athletic footwear and apparel brand, enjoyed success in reaching young consumers in multiple markets through using a mobile ad unit that doubled as a compelling game.
Michaela Nee, New Balance’s integrated marketing associate, global brand programs, discussed this subject at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) 2019 NexGen Marketing Summit.
The brand’s aim was to promote its Fresh Foam running shoes among 13–24-year-olds in the United States, China, and Japan – a target audience that “is fairly averse to traditional marketing tactics,” she explained. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: New Balance’s mobile gaming ad unit drives engagement and brand lift.)
To help achieve its goal, New Balance leveraged a mobile advertising unit that housed a game, called “Cloud Jumper”, that featured several branded elements.
The challenge for players: help “Newbie”, an animated rabbit, hop from cloud to cloud using New Balance-branded trampolines and running shoes.
And when players failed to land a leap, they could opt to play the game again or, alternative, visit the brand’s m-commerce store and browse its product range.
This game delivered a dwell time of more than 20 seconds for the average player, plus replay levels topping 80%, and clickthrough levels to its m-commerce store that were substantially ahead of industry benchmarks.
Perhaps the most significant outcome, Nee argued, was that “Cloud Jumper” demonstrated the benefits of making a bet on a previously untested format, rather than sticking with tried-and-trusted approaches, like online video.
“I think the risk is really falling back on the formulaic approach to content distribution,” she told the IAB NexGen assembly in New York City.
“It's almost like that becomes the danger to growing our brands – it's not this kind of experimental ideas; it's pumping out all this [video] content and only receiving two to three seconds [of attention].
“So, I think, internally it's a huge learning and a huge step that we need to keep these sorts of concepts, [and] different distribution partners, in our consideration set in order to ultimately grow the brand.”
Michaela Nee, New Balance’s integrated marketing associate, global brand programs, discussed this subject at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) 2019 NexGen Marketing Summit.
The brand’s aim was to promote its Fresh Foam running shoes among 13–24-year-olds in the United States, China, and Japan – a target audience that “is fairly averse to traditional marketing tactics,” she explained. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: New Balance’s mobile gaming ad unit drives engagement and brand lift.)
To help achieve its goal, New Balance leveraged a mobile advertising unit that housed a game, called “Cloud Jumper”, that featured several branded elements.
The challenge for players: help “Newbie”, an animated rabbit, hop from cloud to cloud using New Balance-branded trampolines and running shoes.
And when players failed to land a leap, they could opt to play the game again or, alternative, visit the brand’s m-commerce store and browse its product range.
This game delivered a dwell time of more than 20 seconds for the average player, plus replay levels topping 80%, and clickthrough levels to its m-commerce store that were substantially ahead of industry benchmarks.
Perhaps the most significant outcome, Nee argued, was that “Cloud Jumper” demonstrated the benefits of making a bet on a previously untested format, rather than sticking with tried-and-trusted approaches, like online video.
“I think the risk is really falling back on the formulaic approach to content distribution,” she told the IAB NexGen assembly in New York City.
“It's almost like that becomes the danger to growing our brands – it's not this kind of experimental ideas; it's pumping out all this [video] content and only receiving two to three seconds [of attention].
“So, I think, internally it's a huge learning and a huge step that we need to keep these sorts of concepts, [and] different distribution partners, in our consideration set in order to ultimately grow the brand.”
Sourced from WARC
