Games and Marketing, What's the Score?

Companies are increasingly trying to incorporate brand-based online, mobile and social games into their marketing.

But what does this really mean for brands and the people in charge of them? What are the practicalities? Do consumers really want to play “advergames”? Is “gamification” just the latest overhyped new thing? Or worse, simply a wasteful and distracting fad that does little to build brands and consumer engagement? What does a successful brand-based game actually look like?

A diverse panel will debate these important subjects from different angles and viewpoints, followed by an audience participation session.

The panel will represent the whole ecosystem, including:

The CEO: Chris Deering: Former CEO and president of Sony Computer Entertainment (1995-2005), marketer of the PS1/2. Under his leadership, Sony sold over 80M consoles and 1B game disks in PAL territories. In 2003, he received the inaugural Interactive Industry Award from BAFTA for his outstanding contribution to the games industry.

The social games guru: Raf Keustermans is co-founder and CEO of Plumbee, a VC-backed social gaming startup in London. Previously he worked at EA Playfish, as their  global marketing director, served as European marketing director for Pogo.com at EA and worked as head of marketing Western Europe for Unibet.com. Prior to that he worked with ad agencies BBDO, Grey and Publicis Group.

The games design guru: Dr Richard Bartle, Professor of Game Design at Essex University, co-inventor of the first virtual world (MUD, 1978). Was recently awarded the first ever Online Game Legend Award by the Game Developers Conference.

The entrepreneur: Yarden Yaoshevski (NCV06), founder and CEO of StikiPixels, a London-based brand games hot-house that develops gaming campaigns for global and local brands. He will present some examples of modern game branding campaigns.

The discussion will be moderated by Prof. Patrick Barwise, Emeritus Professor of Management and Marketing at London Business School and Chairman of Which?

Each speaker will present for 15 minutes, followed by a 45-minute round table.

The event starts at 18.45, followed by a drinks reception.