Gaming today, Gone tomorrow. Brands who aren’t willing to commit to the long game won’t survive the drop.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in industry is rationalising, to brands, a decision to think ‘sales first’ with the gaming community (seems strange but bear with me). Not because I believe in shifting stock to an easily influenced audience, but because if brands aren’t thinking about how they’ll go from awareness into sales they’ve already lost the battle. Whenever a client says “we just want to focus on awareness” I flinch a little, thinking about the CFO who’ll be looking at the cash flow at the end of the year and asking “how much revenue did we drive from that $200,000 investment in gaming?”.

It’s a battle I’ve faced even within our own teams in the agency, with a clear understanding that awareness must come before sales, naivety compels marketers and agencies to not push brands to think about how they’re selling their product, and I have witnessed as some brands have had their spend pulled before they’ve even managed to get to focusing on sales. With the current economy we’re seeing a variety of brands exiting the space and a variety of brands entering it, and it’s no surprise those that have focused heavily on the awareness piece are the ones struggling to ‘justify’ their continued focus on the industry.

Let’s be honest, it’s much easier for an agency or marketer to demonstrate how many impressions or views they generated for a spend. Sales are complicated, the journey isn’t always direct and with some clients we work with we’ve identified there’s five or more touchpoint a gamer will visit before hitting the buy button. I ask, what’s the point in focusing on awareness if there’s other brands at the other four touch-points focusing on consideration and conversion. I also wonder, if you’re not thinking about sales are you even planning to be around long enough to get there?

I worked brand-side before joining Kairos, the brand in particular went through financially challenging times and being in that marketing department exposed me to the pressures of measuring ROI for every pound spent. Brands today, who work with Kairos are exposed to a similar level of pressure, not by themselves but by the agency, applying just enough to ensure they understand the level of investment, both time and money, required to succeed in our industry.

It’s those brands, and those brands only, that will stand the test of time.