In this special episode of the Naavik Gaming Podcast, recorded live from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, host Kalie Moore sits down with fellow Cannes Lions Gaming Jury member Cheryl Platz, author of The Game Development Strategy Guide, and former UX leader at Riot Games, Scopely, Microsoft, and Amazon. Together, they pull back the curtain on what it was actually like judging one of the world's most prestigious creative awards programs, from the multi-stage evaluation process to the debates that shaped the final winners. They discuss the challenges of evaluating gaming campaigns across vastly different audiences, genres, and markets, and share lessons for brands, agencies, and developers looking to create work that genuinely resonates with players.
The conversation explores some of the most memorable campaigns from this year's competition, including a deep dive into Supercell's big year. Kalie and Cheryl unpack why Copycat's Welcome earned the coveted Grand Prix, how Pocket-Sized Halftime Show won Gold and dominated the conversation across all entertainment conversations, and what these campaigns reveal about creativity, player insight, and measurable impact. They also discuss Skittles' viral gaming flute, Silent Clean's horror game for a century-old cleaning brand, and campaigns that used gaming to tackle organ donation, wildfire prevention, and medical education. The episode offers a rare inside look at how creative excellence is judged at the highest level and what the future of brand integration in games might look like.
We’d also like to thank Dive for making this episode possible! With its fully managed analytics and LiveOps platform built for game studios, 95% of their clients grow revenue in one year. All of that without having to hire an in-house data team. Learn more here: https://www.dive.games/scale/.
This transcript is machine-generated, and we apologize for any errors.
Kalie: Hi, and welcome to the Naavik Gaming Podcast. I'm your host, Kalie Moore. Today, we have a very different and special episode for you.
I- we are recording from Cannes in the south of France at the Cannes Lions, which is one of the biggest advertising and marketing festivals in the entire world, and something very special happened this year. I was invited to be on the jury of the gaming category, as was Cheryl Platz, who is our guest today.
Thanks so much for joining us, Cheryl.
Cheryl: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here with you.
Kalie: And today, we're gonna talk a little bit about what the judging process was like. We're gonna go through some of the different themes that we saw when it came to gaming submissions for gaming and entertainment, and we're also gonna touch on what the future of brand integration with games looks like.
But Cheryl, first of all, thank you for joining me, and I'd love if you could do a little bit more of an in-depth intro about yourself.
Cheryl: Of course. Hi, everybody. My name is Cheryl Platz, and I am currently a video game everything: video game adjunct instructor for Carnegie Mellon University, video game author, a video game podcaster of a podcast called Enduring Play, uh, which focuses on how to create sustainable video game experiences that thrive instead of just surviving.
Uh, and I've had a career that spans both video games and more traditional product, uh, design experiences. I started in video games. I'm trained in computer science and human-computer interaction. Uh, but when my video game career kinda slowed down a little bit because people couldn't kind of get their head around a very young video game producer leading teams, and it's like, who is also a female, it's like, "Okay, cool. We'll try something else," and that's how I ended up spending 10 years doing things like being design lead of the Azure web platform for Microsoft or being, uh, the design, uh, lead who in, was in charge of the n- notifications platform for Alexa, uh, Amazon's Alexa. So, it's been this big roundabout journey, and then the last couple of years was UX director for Riot Games, UX director at Scopely, and, um, currently I'm attending the festival independently as the creative director and owner of Idea Platz LLC, my design education company w- with which I have spoken on five continents.
I've taught workshops about voice interaction, about creative, uh, building shared understanding amongst creatives, uh, in many disciplines. My day job is with The Pokémon Company International as creative director of their game studio, but I don't speak on their behalf or represent them in conversations like this.
I'm very proud to be working with them, but that is, uh, separate from the conversation we're having here today and my, uh, service on the jury here at Cannes.
Kalie: So, we were two of 11 jury members, and we had a really diverse group of people, which I obviously was by design, but I also think it was really interesting.
And I mean diversity when it comes to backgrounds and different types of work, whether it's in gaming, brands, also ge- geographical background. We had, uh, someone from South Africa. We had someone from France. We had, uh, someone from, from Japan, a couple people from the States, from the UK. And I think that Informa, who puts this on, did a really great job of finding a mix of people that could look at the work and judge it with a lot of different experiences in the background.
Before we get into the work itself, I know you were, I- we talked about this a little bit last night, we are both very pleasantly surprised to be invited to the jury, and when we did a little bit of research, there wasn't that much details about the process of being on the jury and what that actually looks like.
So, I wanna dive into that a little bit. Will you just share what your experience was at, from judging at home to what it looked like this last weekend when we were judging altogether?
Cheryl: Absolutely, yeah. It was a fun journey. Uh, and s- for, for me, I, it started with a LinkedIn message. I, and I, I believe that, uh, Lisa, who, who recruits many of the jurists, uh, found me because of my work on my book, The Game Development Strategy Guide, which, which kind of aligned with what they were looking for, which was somebody who was from the games industry and could help represent sort of trends, uh, from the game development side.
And, you know, there was a little bit of back and forth for me to help understand what, what was involved, uh, but once I said yes, things happened very quickly. There was a briefing, and, uh, we, there's a commitment to do pre-judging, uh, where we, for the month, basically the end of April was when we had our, our first briefing.
We all got to meet to, meet each other on Teams, uh, and a very carefully selected time for all these different time zones. It's very international collaboration. And then they have actually really great digital tools where they start sending us entries as they are vetted, 'cause there's also a very, uh, especially, I think it's new this year, but there, there's a, a pretty in-depth vetting process to make sure that these applications that people give for these, uh, award entries, which contain strategy and details on execution, details on impact, they spend a lot of time vetting to make sure that the impact is what people say it is to, to maintain the integrity of the awards.
So as the awards clear the process, um, and are vetted, they start showing up in our queue for us to go and evaluate them and, but there will be multimedia links for each of the entries, like the actual case video and an image, uh, social media links so we can click through and go see, like, what the actual discussion was, maybe in context, like if it was a YouTube video, go see what people were saying on it, uh, and then the description that people would have entered.
So, you know, if you're working on one of these, uh, submissions and you're writing things, we do look at the, the write-ups quite a bit- Mm-hmm ... and refer to those over and over again during the process. But the first round of judging was very personal. Yeah. It's, you're, you're in your home, you're doing it alone.
There's lots of videos that, like, to, to prepare you for it, to help you understand the, the scale and everything, uh, but we do this first round, which takes about a month, and then- Magic happens and they send us a mathematical shortlist of... But the first round there's so many entries that we don't get to see everything.
Kalie: Mm-hmm.
Cheryl: So the second round is when you start to get to see things that maybe other jurors had reviewed, whatever happened to be mathematically sorted to the top. Uh, and then we do another round of at home mathematical judging, and it is from that list that the, uh, shortlist draft gets created. And then that's where we start when we get here in person.
Kalie: Yeah. And I think that's a very great overview. So, then we got here on Friday night. We're recording this on Monday, and I know this is gonna air on Tuesday the following week. Once the winners have been announced, we can talk about them a little bit today. And then we met our jury, our fellow jury members, both for our category, and there's a ton of different categories here, too.
Of course, in entertainment, from sporting, from PR, but also in categories that I wasn't even aware of, like pharma for instance. So, lots of, lots of different categories for creativity being judged. And then on Saturday we did our first round where we had roughly, roughly 30 I would say, on the list, and we had to narrow it down to 20, which was so challenging.
Cheryl: Mm-hmm.
Kalie: And I think that really speaks to the quality and the breadth of work. And then we narrowed it down to 20, and then the following day, which was Sunday, we had to choose, it was three bronze? Or w- did we get to add-
Cheryl: We had four.
Kalie: We, we got to add... We, there were four bronze Two silvers, one gold, and one grand prix, and this is gonna be announced at, at an awards show tomorrow.
Cheryl: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And one of the most interesting things about the process for me was, um, and they let you know this is gonna happen beforehand, but, um, they, they kind of break the- there's- it's a s- scale of one to nine, and they kind of help the- you understand, like, well, these numbers are, you know, maybe this is not an awards candidate.
These numbers are, maybe we should talk about it, and these numbers are, you really feel like this is an awards candidate. Uh, and if you put something in your I really think this is an awards candidate scale, uh, when we get to the shortlisting in-person phase, there's an opportunity for us to, um, flag things that didn't mathematically clear-
Kalie: Yeah
Cheryl: But we still feel like should be discussed. And I love that part of the process, 'cause it helps us bring up things that we think maybe are representative of underrepresented groups, or representative of a trend that, that maybe people didn't have all the context on. Uh, and we did have, uh, some really in-depth discussions about some things on that, that border, and so I love that the process wasn't just strictly mathematical.
Uh, I mean, it is very much based on, like, and inspired by that collective math, but it's not, like, hard sell. It's like you can ask people to consider, have you n- taken a little extra context and, and, uh, use that while we're solidifying the list.
Kalie: And I was very pleasantly surprised how open all the jury members were to reviewing work, exactly like you said, that didn't necessarily make the initial list of 30.
Uh, we- there was definitely at least one that we brought back on that got ranked quite highly, and I think it was one that, it actually wasn't in my first batch, but I know I would've overlooked it, because it was smaller in scale than a lot of what we saw, but the impact was there. And we're gonna get into that one a little bit later.
But I, uh, would love if you could share with the audience, there's a lot of different scales, there's a lot of different types of games, just a couple of, of entries to show what, what we are looking at.
Cheryl: Um, sure. Yeah, so- We'll talk a little bit more at the Inside the Jury Room session later this week about some trends.
But, uh, personally, some of the, the trends and examples that I saw, and maybe I'll pull from some of the things on the border that didn't get awarded- Yeah ... because we like to, to share, uh, uh, to share the love. And let me think about, uh, things that we liked. You know, I, I think, uh, there's the Resident Evil launch, right?
That's... This is a really interesting one for me because, uh, they, they submitted the, in the audio/video category, and they had a really great, uh, basically horror movie that, that's, that's three or four minutes long, and really great fan response. And, uh, the supporting materials talked about how they promoted that video.
Uh, and but when we got into the discussion, you know, the, there was... We're looking for creativity and we're looking for innovation. And- It was interesting because that piece was really innovative in context with everything else that had gone on in the campaign, but it was hard to like... 'Cause I, that was one of the ones I rated most highly, but it was hard in the room to, to like lift it up as innovative, 'cause folks were like, "Well, I've seen this before. I've seen this kind of thing before." And sometimes you hear, see a thing and you're like, "Gosh, I wish it was in another category." Mm-hmm. Like, "Well, I wish I could bring more context in," or, "Oh, you submitted here and you submitted here, but what if it was like a launch, relaunch or something?"
You can't do that as a juror. You, you, uh, uh, have to submit, you review the work in the categories it's submitted, but it's, that's interesting, right? Uh, w- but it speaks to like we... There's really great craft work, but the Lions have all kinds of different juries. Mm-hmm. Right? There is a media category, and so really great filmmaking, or f- uh, short filmmaking can be recognized there.
What is it about this piece that speaks to, uh, that, that it, that really deserves to be in the gaming category? You know, we were talking about the, you know, brand... I believe the, the description is basically like a promotion of brands that, uh, celebrates them through gameplay. Mm-hmm. Right? And we were like, "Where's the game- where is the gameplay here?"
Uh, and so that's the kind of conversation that we have in the room, and there was another piece that was really close that we, we loved. Uh, uh, I, I don't know if I'm gonna pronounce it right. Uh, Capybara P?
Kalie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. I think, I think so. Yeah. Cap- Capybara... Yeah, Capybara P.
Cheryl: That one was... And that brought up a really interesting conversation around gaming trends-
Kalie: Yeah
Cheryl: Pecause this is a propo- it was a submission from, and I, I never pronounce this bre- brand correct- brand correctly, the beer brand. Uh, Ho- Hoegaarden? Uh- Yeah. I, I know when I, I watched the videos, it was like I don't ever pronounce that. Ho- but anyway, maybe we'll look that up. Uh, but-
Kalie: We'll, we'll link to,
Cheryl: uh, the- Yeah, we'll link to the correct pronunciation. Yes ... but-
Kalie: In the show notes.
Cheryl: Uh, uh, the, uh, so the beer, Hoegaarden, who is, uh, in China, was looking for a way to connect with their, uh, local fans. And the, uh, capybara, I think is, is the animal-
Kalie: Mm-hmm ...
Cheryl: Was a meme, and s- known for calmness, known... And so, they were like, "Well, let's just build arcade cabinets where you c- we, we'll build a game where you can pet these capybaras in, uh, uh, there."
And, uh- The discussion was interesting at first, 'cause people were like, "Well, what's a game about petting this- Mm-hmm ... this behind?" But that was where we got to talk about some of the things from, like, I'd observed while writing my book about, like, a lot of players now play for comfort. They play for self-soothing.
This actually connected to something that's very real and very now. Um, but what was challenging for that one was it was so small scale.
Kalie: Yeah.
Cheryl: Uh, it was... We loved it. We loved it so much, and it was just so hard to compete against, uh, some of the other things that were, that were there. Uh, but really amazing, brilliant, uh, conversation piece.
People should go check out that entry 'cause, because we've, we've... It's, it's right there.
Kalie: It was in the humor category, too, and I, I wonder, because gaming was one part of the broader campaign, they also had, uh, they had capybaras, like, in... Not, not real capybaras, but fake capybaras that you could stroke on, uh, escalators going up to the subway, too.
And it really, it, it took off, but the gaming component I do think was interesting, and I love your take on comfort games. And I also love that I think a lot of people play cozy games, but you're, you're in your own home. To see a cozy or a comfort game extend to an arcade setting where, in the video obviously, it's, it's for beer, right?
So, you're having beers with your friends and cozy gaming, but out in the world with the capybara, and a beer, and your friends I thought was, uh, interesting and something we don't usually see.
Cheryl: Yeah, just the expressions on their faces. It was, it was lovely. And of course, maybe it's staged, maybe it's not, but yeah, I thought it was lovely, too.
And, and there's no, like, win conditions. It's just giving- Yeah ... you positive feedback for... But that's okay. There are games like that now. There's like... What's the win condition on Sims? I worked on The Sims, right? Mm-hmm. And that's one of... regarded as one of the best games of all time, and, and there's not really a win condition on it.
I mean, all Sims are probably gonna die if you play it eventually, right? Yeah. Uh, if, play it long enough and they, they age out, or, or you, you build their, your pool wrong or something. But it's about the qual- the experience, just like that, that very fuzzy arcade machine.
Kalie: Um, I wanna talk a little bit about trends that we saw.
One of the things I was a little bit surprised by, I, as you know, work a lot in the UGC space, and there were definitely a handful of submissions of people who were building within Roblox or, or, you know, islands for Fortnite, but less than I thought. So that was interesting to me, and I don't know if we're kind of getting over There, there have been criticisms, uh, criticisms and there have been valid criticisms of people who are just building a game because that's what they think they should do without creative strategy.
And at the end of the day, this is the Lions, which awards creativity in gaming. Although I do think there are some creative examples here. This, uh, entry I personally loved. It didn't make it to the shortlist. I'm not even sure if I voted for it for the shortlist, but it was the Salvation Army, which is a thrift store in America, built a thrift store within Roblox that allowed people to thrift Thrift digital clothing.
And, uh, they were doing it to build brand connection with Salvation Army, to drive people to Salvation Army, but I also think there's an interesting conversation on sustainability of also being able to thrift your digital goods, which maybe you keep forever, but maybe it was a moment of self-expression.
And rather than just have it in a game, you know, to sell it to someone else for a discounted price I thought was a really unique concept. Any thoughts on any of the Roblox or the UEFN entries that we saw? Oh,
Cheryl: so very much, yeah, and I'm glad you, you brought that one up. I was disappointed 'cause I couldn't play that one.
Like, I, I, I saw the entry and I like tried to find it and it had... You know, it was no longer there in, uh, Roblox. But I loved the idea. And what... So, in, in my book, The Game Development Strategy Guide, I talk about the motivators of play. Mm-hmm. And one of the more modern motivators of play is self-expression.
Uh, and self-expression as a motivator of play didn't make as much sense in a world where we didn't have the internet, we didn't have scale, we didn't have, uh, it, multiplayer as, as prominent, right? You're just, like, playing for yourself. Yeah. And, and maybe you're intrinsically motivated enough that you're having fun just playing Digital Paint or something.
But now that you have these big platforms, self-expression, the entirety of League of Legends is basically funded on people buying skins. They, they, like, you can't... They, they don't, the purchases don't really tie to gameplay terribly much. Mm-hmm. Like, you can unlock a champion here or there, but mostly it's like, "I just wanna look good.
I want people to see me differently." And so, what I loved about the Salvation Army piece was that it, it spoke to that, that very real driver of play, like, of that motivator of play, self-expression, in a way that, like, was very accessible. And it also, like... You know, some of the, the places that people get into trouble in a game like Roblox is, like, monetization, right?
And it's, like, the opposite of ex- exploitive- exploitative monetization when you're like, "Hey, these are, these are affordable outfits. These are, you know, these..." And so it was, it felt kind of like a joyful celebration of self-expression. Uh, and there was also this sense of immediacy, right? Like, there, the pieces had a sort of...
I, I couldn't verify this, of course, but it seemed like some of the pieces had a uniqueness, not all, right, but were, like, a limited time, uh, sense. And so that leans into that. It's almost becomes like a game loop. Like, you gotta go in- Yeah ... and, and get the piece before other folks. And, and that's, that's almost, like, a status symbol or a form of mastery over the shopping.
So, there was a lot going on that I thought was, was very cool about that, and I was kinda disappointed that it wasn't continuing on- Mm-hmm ... 'cause I thought it would be a neat addition to that, that space. But, you know, the fact that it wasn't available, 'cause it, it was something that had launched, I think, in March, and we were judging in, like, early May, spoke to me about this ephemeral nature of the engagements.
There were several, uh, pi- Interactive worlds or interactive experiences were, were proposed to us that we had no way of evaluating the gameplay. Yeah. Uh, and it's not a requirement, but, you know, there were several places where I felt like I might have been able to vote more, like vote something higher if I had more than a video.
Uh, like, because the, the, the impact metrics didn't tell the full story. It was like, I don't know if this is quality. Like, what you've given me doesn't... If you could give me a metric that says, "Gameplay hours watched," that doesn't- Yeah ... tell me that the game was good. That just tells me that you picked a streamer that had a lot of people following them, right?
Kalie: And I think, so I do a lot of award submissions for our clients as a PR person, and I personally had a lot of learnings in this space as well of what metrics do we dive into and think, like, that is a gray area. You just know how it was framed, and I think the hours watched of gameplay is very different than actual people who played the game- Mm-hmm
for instance. And so, this is a learning that I'll be taking back whenever I'm doing award submissions for clients of, what are the KPIs that would actually show or prove success, and then use those. I have a feeling with a lot of these, the PR people do that, and just the numbers weren't there. So, there are other, more vanity metrics, right?
Or views, streams, that kind of thing, um, especially when it's, when you're working with paid influencers. But something interesting for the people who do award submissions, that and is there any way in your submission that you can allow people access to the gameplay, which I know isn't possible, especially in these branded experiences.
There's contracts. If, if you only have a Fortnite island for two months, how are jurors next year going to evaluate it? But something to keep in mind, because there could be workarounds there.
Cheryl: And, you know, o- another, uh, experience that I rated highly, it didn't quite make it to the short list, but there was, uh, Ciara, I think, had done a Stranger Things collaboration, and they sent us, like, a, a full video of, like, their whole collabor- like, raw gameplay, right?
I thought that was really cool. Oh, that's cool.
Kalie: But- I didn't, they weren't on my list. Ah. I didn't see that.
Cheryl: Like, if I I had, like, a list. Uh, there was many entries I wanted to bring back up because it, it's tough in that, like, segmented when I know not everybody's able to see all of the entries. But, uh, that, I thought that was interesting, right?
Like, and, uh, I think it, it builds trust as a juror when you're willing to show, like, raw game player- Yeah ... or players experiencing your game. Uh, because it, it, it's, it's tough y- this, when you just see some of those sanitized metrics. Uh, we're trying to award innovative- celebration of brands through gameplay and hours watched is not gameplay.
Mm. Uh, like, searching for your island is not the same as playing your island, uh, or, or, you know. Now, time spent in the island, uh, number of people downloading your game, uh, those things start to become a little bit more compelling. Uh, but in the end, some of the things that are most compelling are, like, the conversions you get through that, right?
Yeah. The, and one of the things one of our fellow jurors kept bringing up is like, "What problem does this campaign solve?"
Kalie: Yeah.
Cheryl: Right? And that's one of the takeaways I wanna bring back to my teams, because sometimes even game developers struggle with, like, measurable success criteria. And one thing I tell my teams all the time is, "Make sure we're solving the right problem.
Before we even start this thing, do we know what success looks like? Have we agreed on the problem we're solving? And we have, have we agreed on what that measurement looks like?" If you don't start, if you don't do that before chasing the shiny, you might have a really great campaign and, and, and not have the language to articulate what was great about it on these big global stages.
And so, you're giving yourself a gift, your future self a gift, by taking the time up front to say, like, "What is the goal, and how do we measure it, and have we built this campaign to measure that success?" And I know it's tough when you have a big, great idea. I get it. I struggle with that, too, but, like, it was very evident which campaigns had done the work to set clear goals and drawn the line to clear impact, and which campaigns have, like, chased a bit of a shiny and were like, "Yeah, you know, a lot of people showed up."
And you're like, "That is great."
Kalie: And some had huge metrics, right? Like, there was the McDonald's Minecraft movie collaboration where if you looked at the results of that by a purchase, it was just, it was insane. But we, I don't think it was even on our short list. It was on our original list of 30.
Cheryl: It got really close.
Yeah. It, it, but, and that was a really long conversation for us. And that was a theme I wrote down. I don't know if we'll get to talking about it on Wednesday, but for me, a thing that kept coming up was big brand plus big brand creates an illusion of innovation by scale, right? Like, you just look at the numbers and you're like, "Oh my God, that's so successful."
But, like, is it success we've seen before? Like, does it deserve an award over and over again? Uh, i- or is there, does the conversation need to move to something else? Like, sometimes you just have two big brands, you put them together, those people are gonna show up. Regardless, right? And sometimes that's on not telling a story in a specific way- Yep
that's like solving a problem or something. If you focus on the volume as opposed to like change in behavior- Mm-hmm ... or something like that, if it's just raw visits instead of like longitudinal behavior. Um, but, but yeah, this, that, that was something I wrote down in my notebook was like big brand has, big brand can create this illusion of innovation and, but then when you poke at it, you're like, "This, this is not, this is safe.
It is, it is do- it is templated."
Kalie: Ig- and I think that's one of the things we kept coming back to as well, like Cannes Lions rewards creativity. So, there were some really good campaigns, which I'm al- including the, um, Minecraft McDonald's in there, when, when it looks at the results and also the craft behind it too, but there wasn't something deeper.
Like all of the winners, even on a much smaller scale, like they were so well thought out and executed and clever, and I think every single person in the room and on the jury thought like, "Man, I wish I would've been part of that." And there were clear winners in that category. Let's talk a little bit about- Real world problems because, I mean, we can talk about, I, I think all of the winners solved very clear problems.
But one of the... There were a couple of entries this year that I was blown away by that solved very tangible real world, not just gaming problems. And I'm thinking about Virtual Donors and also the, uh, the, what was it? The Fire Catcher? I think that was the name of that.
Cheryl: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Kalie: Uh, do you, do you remember in either of those two or wanna speak to those?
Cheryl: Uh, so the Virtual Donors, if we're getting that, that name correct, there was a really great campaign trying to inspire gamers to, uh, become organ donors. And there was actually a cluster of, uh, ver- of different campaigns around medical awareness- Yes ... and medical engagement. But this one stood out because, uh, it, it seemed to tie particularly into the Fortnite gameplay loop particularly well.
Mm-hmm. But the, essentially, the, the hook was, like, if you register as an organ donor, you can unlock this mod that helps you bring eight people back to life in the game as you will bring people back to life in, your passing in real life, right? And, and it's a very compelling story when you, like, see somebody in a game spawn these eight hearts.
You're like, "What is going on," right? Mm-hmm. And there's, like, a unique sort of icon associated with the mod and everything. Uh, and when you, and I love that you brought out, too, like, there's a very specific storytelling element to this, too. Like, this, you wanna talk about the specific mod developer?
Kalie: Yeah, yeah.
So, I, I love mod author stories. It's one of my favorite things I get to do with PR is to tell the pe- the stories of the people behind the creations. And this campaign was started in Belgium. It, think it was, it, it was listed under charity, too, so it's a non-profit. There was not a huge budget for this by any means, and the organizers or the creators of this found a mod author, who I believe was based in New Zealand, whose wife was actually on the lung transplant list, and he created this mod in three different titles.
And eight isn't just a random number. It was that if the average organ donor can save up, a young organ donor can save up to eight lives. So it was, it was tangible. It was well thought out. And it, and also to get the mods, you had to actually sign up through the registry of the Belgian site. And there were, as you mentioned, a couple of others, uh, in this realm, but there wasn't that direct connected action.
This was the only one that did make it to the short list that- I don't know if I, I could have seen move up to, to a bronze. This was the only one that I felt strongly about that didn't get there.
Cheryl: Yeah, it was really the, the, it was a contender for sure. And, uh, you know, it's ... And they also had, were just very good at their storytelling.
Like- Yeah ... the, the case video is very strong. Uh, and, uh, I love that they chose multiple games. Like, uh, Fortnite got the most engagement by far, but I love that you're trying to meet players where they are, uh, give them a variety of options. Uh, you know, that was, that was an interesting conversation in the room, 'cause people were like, "Well, some of these, these games, like, maybe the gameplay benefit isn't- Mm-hmm
as large." And, and so you start getting... And that's the difficulty. When you start getting up into the metal, like the, the na- every... And it's very evident, right? Like, every time you clear a bar, the nature of the conversation changes and the nature of the scrutiny changes. Yeah. So, something that we were, like, all vibing on- Mm-hmm
somebody was like, "But what about the, that level of craft, or what about that level of impact?" 'Cause now, uh, and, and so it's, it was, it was very interesting to see that, uh, where we could be kind of all in agreement about a thing, and then when we took the next level of scrutiny, it was very clear. Like- Yeah
this one is where it needs to be, and we, it, it doesn't have enough to bring it to the next level. Um, but, like, great work. And the- there, a- and, you know, another one of the pieces that I, I was on my shortlist of things I wanted to bring back for the shortlist, uh, was, uh, and almost this, it was, it was this or, or the one we're gonna talk about in a second.
But, uh, First Person Surgeons, I think it was called. Uh- Yeah ... like-
Kalie: I liked that one too.
Cheryl: It was great. Uh, eh, there was, the, it's a partnership between, uh, a, a, a medical school and a prominent, a, a prominent esports professional, and v- very thoughtful curriculum around basically, like, using w- I think it was Call of Duty.
But basically saying, like, "Hey, uh, the skills you learn in these games are the same skills you need to be good at surg- surgery, and we're gonna walk you through that." Like, situational awareness- Mm-hmm ... and like, a- and, and, like, teamwork and, and these things. Um, I thought it was really compelling, and I loved how it really broke down what a pro esports player does in a way that can be applied to other things, and, and really used games and the fun games bring to engage the, the surgeons a different way.
I think one of the reasons it- It didn't click for me just yet, was like the, it's like so early that like the impact numbers weren't- Yeah ... there for me to like really pitch it in the room. Mm-hmm. When it didn't clear i- initially number, but like I loved, I hope they'll like continue and come back. Like, I hope that has the, the legs to, to get there eventually, 'cause that was a really cool application of like brands and gaming and, and, and everything together.
Kalie: Yeah, and that real world impact. But it was, I agree, too early, uh, to tell on that one. And then the other one that I mentioned was called Fire Catchers, and so obviously with, uh, climate change, fires, especially in Europe, especially in south of France, uh, are becoming a major problem. And there's cameras everywhere all over the forest in France, but there aren't enough people, and there's, the AI apparently isn't fine-tuned enough to detect fires.
And so, what they did is they put, b- on Twitch, so streaming platform, when someone's waiting there for their favorite streamer, it's just idle time, but you have engaged gamers. And so, they partnered with streamers in France that before they came on to stream, they streamed the, th- the forest, and gave gamers the options if you were to see smoke, you flag it in the chat.
And it prevented I think they said five major forest fires. Yeah, five forest fires. Yeah, and I thought that was such, one, it is, it is a real world problem. How do we get people who are eager to give attention to look at something, to pay close attention to something? And I feel like the person who created that, that person is a gamer, right?
They know about Twitch. They know about that idle time. I thought it was such a creative idea to solve a very real world problem.
Cheryl: Oh, yeah. That, that one was, uh, it was ... And, and that was one of the, a couple of them that got kinda like got pitched, uh, th- by folks that didn't necessarily clear, but was brought back.
I, and- And it was also interesting how that conversation changed, 'cause I think it made it to our shortlist, but we weren't able to get it to bronze, and I think one of the things that reflects kind of the, the, uh, the interesting tension in this category was it's a really great use of Twitch. But when we were- once we got it to, to I believe shortlist, it, like, it was difficult to say, like, but is it, a, like, it's use of Twitch and it's gaming adjacent, but is it gameplay?
Mm-hmm. And like, when we looked at the notes, we were like, "Well, we d- we were inspired by gameplay when we designed this," and there's a little bit of like, okay, I report this forest fire, and, and but, but like there wasn't really a game loop, right? And, and so to say it's like game, i- inspired by gameplay, but it, like, it didn't...
And you don't have to... So, it was hard to find the gameplay or the game, the part of it. It's game adjacent, and that was... But it was such a noble cause, and it's such a noble thing, and, and it's tough. I think one of the hard things for juries is to, like, just sit and evaluate the work as it is in the moment, 'cause it's a bunch of creatives, and we could go off and be like- Mm-hmm
"But what about this, and what about this?" And like, no, no, no. Okay. What, what is in the brief? What happened? What is the actual, like, mathematical implication? And sometimes it'll be like we're going to do X and Y- Yeah ... in future years, but that's not what we're evaluating. We're evaluating- What happened ... what got submitted now, what the impact is now.
Um, it'd be great to, like, see it come back and evolve. Like, w- I'd love for them to come back and, and come with like a tighter motivational loop that gets even more results. Mm-hmm. Like, oh, my God. Uh, like, that, that's a great start, but that was the nature of kind of trying to, to figure out where that landed.
But, but really cool, innovative idea. And, and, you know, they did say that they're kind of getting some traction at a, at a national level- Yeah ... which is amazing.
Kalie: One of the things that you mentioned when we talked about virtual donors and how they, uh, out- there was modded content for three different games is the type of work that we saw spoke to such a wide variety of gaming audiences.
I think when I initially went into it, I thought it would be more mainstream, like, you know, just FIFA, which we did see, and we do have- We did ... we do have winners in those categories as well. But there were, I think, very typically underrepresented gamers in gaming throughout. Were there any underrepresented, underrepresented games that had submissions that you were impressed by?
Cheryl: There was some heat around work coming from Latin American communities, and, like, some, some of it was around, uh, like the Golden Island, you know? And I thought, I, like, I voted that one reasonably highly, but I think it was tough for, for the impact- Mm-hmm ... to, like, tell the story of, like, how is this impact proportional?
You know? Like, it ha- like, what makes this... It, it seemed like it, to me, it was d- it was very impactful for the region, but how do you, like, tell the story in a way that people from other regions understand that that's- Yeah ... really impactful? But, um, it It was, uh, that, I think La Ila did La Diversion for, uh, Golden, and it, it felt like they were pretty authentic, and it seemed like the numbers kind of tracked for people actually playing the island.
But, um, there were a couple of things from, uh, that there were also some cool... There was a, a cool program for kind of trying to use gaming to get people out of, uh, sort of recidivism and, and, uh, li- life of crime, for lack of a better word, and that was a really cool, a, a, a wonderful campaign. It bore some similarities to some stuff that had been recognized earlier, and so that was, I think, one of the, the challenges there sometimes is, like, when things are very directly correlated to prior work.
It's like how do you- Yeah ... find the differentiating factor? Um, but I loved seeing those threads.
Kalie: And maybe not just underserved, right? I think the different types of fandom is more what I was thinking of. For instance, there was a very strong submission. It's completely targeted towards the Dungeons & Dragons community-
done by IKEA, which I thought was so clever. So, a- apparently, I- I'm not in the Dungeons & Dragons community. A lot of people get their names, their gaming names, from former IKEA catalogs. Uh, and apparently IKEA catalogs haven't been published since 2021, and at the, I believe, Milan Games Week, IKEA came, and they published a Dungeons & Dragon gaming catalog for all of those fans to pick their favorite, their favorite names from it.
It didn't... I don't think it was shortlisted. It
Cheryl: was shortlisted. It did not... Yeah.
Kalie: Okay. It, I
Cheryl: think it, I think it was shortlisted, but it didn't, it didn't clear, uh, bronze.
Kalie: But I thought that was such a, a creative idea for a very particular type of fandom that could only have been created by someone who did deeply understand the community.
Cheryl: Yes, that was, uh... And it was lovely. That was, like, a really great pilot of an idea. Mm-hmm. Uh, that was one of those ones where we were like, all, me- all of us were like, "Oh, I wish I had one of those, first of all. Second of all," like, "Oh, I wish to be involved in something like that." And then also, like- it, the impact, like, was, was very limited, and so it was, like, beautiful.
But like, the, uh, you just, you can't help but fall in love with the video of the fans picking up that book in the, the convention center, right? Yeah. And just literally just yelling brand names of these, uh- And like, when you look at the, like, celebrating brand through gameplay, like, that's literally the definition of the category- Mm-hmm
right? Which is why it's, even though it's a very simple solution, it makes sense in the short list. Like, if someone's just, just yelling, "Lack!" 'Cause that's the, the, they've pulled the name of the Lack chair out of the book. Like, that's, that's interesting, and that, there was a lot of love for that there. And so I, it, that speaks to not all of the solutions need to be highly technical or, it's, or highly complicated.
Uh, you know, and, and some of the stuff we recognized was, uh, more simple from a technical perspective. Mm-hmm. But it spoke to, but it had a clear theory of change, and it had clear impact, so it didn't need to move mountains to do what it did. Um, you know, I, I, I'm gonna shout out another thing that's just kind of random, but it's- Yeah
another one of the ones I wanted to pull out, like, I wanted to be able to promote, but I think was a cool example. There was a lot of heat in, like, the, uh, the new technologies category. There was a lot of stuff that I think was really cool and just was hard for people to get their head around maybe. But, uh, the Fantasy Herd, did that come up for you?
Kalie: Yeah, I rated that one quite highly too.
Cheryl: I rated that one highly too. Uh, so there is, it's a New Zealand, I, it, the, and I, uh, unfortunately I'm forgetting the exact brand of the, the milk. But go check out the Fantasy Herd, uh, app- or submission, because they basically, to promote their product, they, they used, uh, wearable technology for cows to track milk production and health of the cows, and all the cows had names, and you could, like, draft them onto fantasy teams.
And, uh, and it, like, they, they had measurable impact on sales, and their, their fans wanna see another season. Uh, and like, really interesting use of tech- wearable technology- Mm-hmm ... which is what, what fit with that category, uh, to drive, uh, this, this fantasy gameplay element. I thought that was, that was really interesting, and, and probably more complex than e- the s- jury may have even really truly appreciated.
Uh, that was, that was really cool. There was another one from the National Guard, which was, like, using VR to help people understand how they respond to w- like, wildfires and other, and, and they had- Oh, I didn't see that one ... that one was, uh, the, I, I really liked the results on that one. Mm-hmm. Like, there, like the fo- there were, you know, first of all, VR is hard, and this was a touring VR- Mm-hmm
uh, installation. And so for that to even work, good job, 'cause you're like... Uh, but the, giving pe- showing people how to e- e- engage in teamwork to put out a forest fire or something. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of- gamers who want to connect to each other, right? Yeah. Like, co- uh, that's one of the, uh, Companionship's one of the more modern motivators of play from multiplayer, and we're losing third spaces, right?
And so, to get, to, to go into a high school and show players a multiplayer experience that gives them skills that help them understand how to keep communities safe, like, really hit to something, like, a lot of young people feel, uh, unsafe or, or- Mm ... unmoored by climate change or, or just by disasters or just by...
And so that was a really cool use of gameplay to give a thread to like, oh, there are things I can do in my community to help each other, to team up with other people to, to, to help in, in, in an emergency. And so, I, I really liked that use of, of VR technology. That was very cool.
Kalie: Oh, yeah, I wish I would've seen that one.
I didn't think I had any VR at, or-
Cheryl: Yeah, that was a category that, uh, that it must have been-
Kalie: Yeah ... our side of. Okay. Interesting. All right, I wanna talk a little bit about the winners, right? And maybe we start with the one that you had brought back, which I believe- Got a bronze or- It did get a bronze.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Kalie: Okay. Do you wanna talk about that one and what was so compelling?
Cheryl: Yeah, so, uh, as I mentioned, there's this mechanic where we, we get the mathematical shortlist, and then we are- then we kind of look and we're like, "Okay, there's duplicates, and, and are, are things in the right categories, and, and have we..." Uh, and once we, we figure things out, if there's space, jurors can, can bring up, one per juror, something that they think might've been overlooked.
And that was really tough, 'cause we just talked about a bunch of things we liked. Yeah. And I had a bunch of them scrawled down. But there was one entry that had spoken to me, and there were a number of things I, I know about the gaming community, right? Like, horror is, is very big right now. We didn't have a lot of representation from Asian gaming in general.
Mm-hmm. Uh, and we also didn't... Like, what had managed to make it through, there wasn't a lot of re- Like, we had seen kind of a decline in, like, the Roblox and Fortnite stuff, uh, but not a lot of, like, indie gaming things. Yeah. Uh, and there was this, there was this submission from the Kao Corporation in Japan, Silent Cleaning, and it's this, uh, it, it basically this one or two-hour indie game you can download from Steam.
It's all in Japanese, although I hope they'll localize it to English. Uh, but the, the premise was build a narrative-based horror game where the, the mechanics are s- totally centered around Kao products, and they, they very intentionally used game design to make it so you, you had to, like, differentiate between similar products.
So, like, they literally had streamers, like, reading the labels of their products on air, not because they were sponsored, but because, like, that was the gameplay- Mm-hmm ... and they're, like, try- really into it. Uh, but they had, had every, all the elements of horror, like jump scares and everything. It had a very distinct sort of, uh, I call it classic in my book, but, like, lo-fi aesthetic, which is smart if you're, if you're doing something and you're maybe not a AAA studio.
But, uh- The results were so compelling. Yeah. Like, sales of their products jumped 200%, and these are cleaning products that have been around for 100- Mm-hmm ... years or more. Uh, a- and, uh, influencer engagement was massive, like 200,000 downloads of this free Steam game about cleaning in Japan. Uh, it was charting on Steam.
Like, it was... It, it... Th- and this is, this is, this is a, a cleaning brand that had nothing to do with gaming, and, uh, like, a really bold choice for them to go in this, and they just embraced the genre fully. And what I also loved about their case study was they... It wasn't just, "We're gonna do a game," right?
Mm-hmm. 'Cause I've seen a lot of that, right? Like, you can see it all the time in Fortnite- Yeah ... levels, like, "We did a map." Uh, but they don't think about the game loop. They don't think about motivation. They don't think about... And so, w- there was a lot of craft in there when they... In the description, they're like, "The last level is very thoughtfully designed with, like, rows of toilets to, like, increase the, the tension and the speed, and then c- so that it'll, it will really get people engaged," right?
Like, there's th- there were very intentional design decisions made to make it engaging for players, not just, like, a transaction, but, like, a quality experience, and that's what got these big Japanese streamers, horror game streamers, like, really into it, just super broadcasting it. They- Yeah ... I think they said they had 3,200 videos on YouTube of the game.
Kalie: Organic, so not paid.
Cheryl: Organic, right? Uh, and so it was just ev- the more I watched it, the more I looked at the numbers, I'm like, "I, I can't look away from this one." It's just, it's this celebration of the sub-genre in gaming. It's a brand that, like, by all rights should not have been successful- Mm-hmm ... at this, and they, they're thriving, and, and people are out there buying this product and, and, and, like, cleaning their houses more and, and enjoying the jump scares as a result.
So, uh, I brought that back, uh, to the group. And the, the other thing I knew was it was one of those ones that, 'cause it had only been submitted in one category- Yeah ... ha- a lot of the jury hadn't seen it. And so, because it hadn't cleared in its one category, I spoke with one juror, uh, beforehand and had, had mentioned that there weren't a lot of things from, uh, the Asian s- like, uh, continent.
I was like, "I think this is my only chance to get this thing in front of the jury. I don't think the other side has seen this, so I... It's..." Of all the things, like some of the other things I liked I knew everybody had seen 'cause they- Mm-hmm ... had been submitted in multiple categories, so it had kind of had its chance.
Yeah. But this one in particular I was like, "I, I honestly think a lot of the jury hasn't seen it because of the way the math works and everything, and so I'm gonna..." And, and so, uh, put that out there, and was pleasantly surprised, and, uh, a- and it, and it made its way to a bronze.
Kalie: And I'm so grateful you did, 'cause I, I hadn't seen it.
And I also think when you're reviewing so many in the beginning, you might not focus on... 200,000 downloads when we're comparing it to other games doesn't sound huge, but then when we really talked about it as a jury to be like, they launched this game on Steam. There wasn't a huge marketing budget behind it.
How did they even handle the discoverability? And they still had 200,000 downloads. Like, when you put all the different criteria, it's truly incredible what they were able to do. Another one that A lot of people championed, which I believe was silver. I'm talking Skittles Taste the Rainbow. Was it, it was silver?
Cheryl: Yeah, Skittles. The Skittles flute.
Kalie: With a Skittles flute, which is pr- well, this with the capybara therapy were the two most bizarre entries. Uh, but it just absolutely delighted people, and what was funny is I think jury members changed opinions along the way, and by the end people were just obsessed with the flute.
Do you wanna talk about the activation?
Cheryl: Yeah, so, uh, the, the Skittles gaming flute, you know, you're watching all these, these submissions, and a lot of them are, "Hey, here's, here's this Fortnite level" or h- here are the... And then Skittles just comes in hard at you with, like, this super retro thing. Uh, and it's like, the tagline's like, "Blow your way to victory."
I'm like, "I'm sorry, where, what are we doing?" And they, and they, they took a real flute and they turned it into a game controller that you had to play. Like, play as a flute, like blow through it and play to, to, to control a game. And then they... And they did this because they were looking for a specific community of gamers to connect with, and they, they, they identified this as challenge gamers, right?
Uh, uh, speed runners, et cetera, right? P- folks who... A- and I described, I was in the jury room. I was trying to kind of ex- give some more context for the, the jury. I was like, "This group of gamers, they take the conditions of winning that already exist in a game and say like, 'That's not enough for me.'"
Kalie: Mm-hmm.
Cheryl: I, my...
The, it's the motivation of play. I had discussed mastery, right? Like, it's not enough to master what everybody else does. I'm going to create additional constraints and master those because that's what makes me feel good, is, like, being the best of the best, right? And so, a- and often that means, you know, in their, in their, uh, demo video it's like people who are, like, playing open world games with a DDR dance pad or something.
Mm-hmm. Like, really wild stuff. And so, they were like, "Wild? Why not?" And the thing about the Skittles gaming flute, like, the, we've, we saw a lot of things that were, like, controller mods for, for, like, an Xbox controller or things like that. Uh, but this thing, like, it was so brand inspired. When you talk about brand integration, it's, if you go and look at it, it is, uh, it has a, it is bright red and all of the keys are Skittles, right?
Yeah. Like, it's literally playing the rainbow. Just... A- and, uh, the box, like, it talks to you when you open it. We- They did
Kalie: bring one to us ... they did bring one. We were- So we could, we could try it out ... yeah. It was impressive.
Cheryl: Uh, it's a very, if you have physical meaning, you could bring it in. It's very compelling.
But, but just, you know- And this one, they, they, they sent, and they made six, I think, of these flutes, and they sent them to influencers and, and let them do, like, 72 hours straight on these things. Mm-hmm. I'm like, "I have, I have big physical devices I've bought that don't last for 72 hours." They, they created this bonkers peripheral, and then sent it out on faith to people whose job it is to bra- basically break things.
Mm-hmm. And, um, and let it go. And, and the results, their communities were... Loved it, and they had, you know, uh, deep chat engagement, right? Like, and so in this case, you know, we talked about downloads, we talked about, like, the difference between minutes watched versus minutes played. Now, this type of engagement, this was in co- influencer and co-streamer, I think.
Yeah. Uh, uh- No, no, no, it was Use of Humor ... or no, it was Use of Humor. Yeah. Okay, so Use of Humor is a little bit more flexible, right? Mm-hmm. Like, uh, it's, uh... And so, it's, the humor was the audience's relationship with the streamers. Uh, and it's a little bit of schadenfreude, right? Because you've got this, the streamer, and they're, like, running out of breath 'cause they can't control the thing.
Uh, and so in that case, looking at the goals the brand has, it's, it's how much do th- are they in the picture in this conversation? And they literally had, like, how often they were mentioned in the chat, uh, which was, like, once a minute- Once a minute ... for, for, for, like- For, like, the whole weekend ... the whole weekend.
Yeah. Yes. And so, they were the... And, and that speaks to having your goals clear, right? Yep. Uh, it wasn't just, like, people watching it. That's, that's quality engagement for the brand. People... And, you know, they showed some of the chat, too. It's very much people being like, "Skittles, we love you. This is great.
What is this? We don't understand it, but we love it." Um, it's just, it's, it's like, uh, like, deranged genius. I just... Like, it, it... So many people had to keep saying yes to that.
Kalie: Yeah. E- exactly. And for that and the capybara, like, I wanna meet the people who pitched that idea, and then the person who actually green-lit that.
'Cause there were so many times along the way that someone could've just been like, "What the fuck?" Or, "Really?" Also, it was Skittles' first gaming activation ever.
Cheryl: Was it? That's what they said.
Kalie: I didn't have that
Cheryl: context.
Kalie: Yeah, that's what it said it in the video. And of all the different, you know, snack products that are advertising in gaming, and this didn't come off as an ad at all.
It was truly just organic chaos on brand, and it delighted- The streamers, the audience, and every single person in the jury
Cheryl: Yeah, and it, it, the funny thing was, like, it didn't have to come with, like, a coupon code. Yeah. It didn't have to come with a giveaway, which is a very common thing. Like, there are a lot of coupon codes and giveaways- Mm-hmm
that come through, and that's a conversation that comes up, right? Like, that's a, that's a very specific type of activation. And then we have to consider how much of the behavior changes because people like free stuff versus- Yeah ... how much of the behavior changes because people are genuinely enac- interacting with it, right?
Mm-hmm. Like, that heightens the conversation when you're throwing the free stuff at people. But this wasn't, like... Th- there wasn't even, like, a c- it was just, like, this joyful activation around the thing. Uh, it's just go, go do this, go do this stuff, at, at least a- as far as it was presented in the case video.
Yeah. I wish I had seen the streams live. I think that would've been really fun, and that's, that's part of- 100% ... what you want from these things is, like, the wish for the visceral participation. Yeah. Um, I wonder what it w- and I think we were all a little surpri- like, we, we, we saw it go to the shortlist, and then we saw it go to the Bronson.
Like, as a collective, as we start talking through these things and that, that level goes up, and i- but it, it held as we started to- It held ... evaluate.
Kalie: And different people championed it at different times. Yeah. Like, it, it was definitely a beloved entry of everyone. All right. We are going to shift because we only have 10 minutes left, which we are in a recording studio at CON, and all the influencers are here.
So, the fact that we were able to get in was a miracle, and we haven't even talked about the true winner of pretty much everything, and that was Supercell. I believe they had four entries shortlisted- Yeah ... and three were placed, including the Grand Prix and the Gold Award. Do you wanna start with maybe your favorite from all the Supercell entries?
Cheryl: You know, for me, it was really tough, 'cause, like, the one that spoke to me, like, the, the most was probably, uh, the, the Cracked Royale. Like, that one kept- Interesting ... I kept coming back to, uh, which was, a, a, a localized campaign in Brazil where, uh, it, and it was a low-budget one that was recognized, uh, a break- for Breakthrough on a Budget, but, uh, where they recognized that players in Brazil, one in three players in Brazil just don't upgrade their phone when their phone's cracked.
And so they, they, uh, were, found a way to kind of pro- uh, uphold players for their skill in playing the game while their phones were cracked. Uh, and when we started talking about, like, I already liked it. I thought it was very clever, and, uh, like, the numbers were really h- huge. Yeah. Right? Like that, uh, it's like
Kalie: 200- 385,000 people- New- New users, I think.
Cheryl: Yeah. So- something like that, um- Really, and, and for a constrained market- Yeah ... right? Like for a single market activation, uh, really, really compelling. And then when we started talking about it too, we were like, "You know, that actually involves more of the commu- Like it's, it's the, the it's, it's very clever too because it, it, it's very hard to just get that video on your own.
Kalie: Yeah.
Cheryl: Like you need somebody to play with you. Uh, you, you need someone to help or something to help you videotape this, this broken phone and record it. And so, it, it inherently just creates this conversation. Uh, and so it was, it saw a community. They ex- that community self-reported feeling seen. Mm-hmm. And it in- it had this like halo effect of growing.
So, like that one I really loved. Like I, it was tough because there, we had some other entries. Supercell had a really great year, but that, that just had undeniable impact.
Kalie: Yeah.
Cheryl: But I, I loved that entry for what it did for that market.
Kalie: I like that that was your favorite because my favorite, I liked, I liked a lot of what they did, but my favorite was shortlisted but I don't think was placed, and it was called D Balloons, and it was in the audio visual content.
And what they did is they created a trailer video for Clash Royale, and they did it through balloons. Like- Just balloon characters, and they used over 10,000, and they did a behind-the-scenes video of it. And for me, just the craft of it, how wild it was, and one of the things that I kept bringing up is in a world of just AI slop, someone creating something just so beautiful and bizarre and weird.
I'm really glad we live in a world where this is, this- there's a budget for this, right? But I do think it was also entered into other categories other than just gaming. And then let's talk about the two winners. Maybe we talk about Gold first, uh, which was Pocket-Sized, uh- Mm-hmm, Halftime ... Halftime Show. Do you wanna speak to that?
Cheryl: Yeah, and I'm also gonna say, too, like, I... Like, one thing I struggled with was, like, how strong a year Supercell had. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, I, a- and I was really grateful for, like, the integrity measures that the, the compliance folks had because, like, I had several questions several times, like, "Can... Like, is this okay?
Are we doing the right thing? Have you-" Yeah. Could they... And they had watchers in the room monitoring all our conversation and taking notes. They've, like, double-checked all the numbers several times. There's checks every time we moved up a, a, a, like, a meta level to make sure everything was... Because, you know, like, it's tough, like, when so many entries are strong coming from- Yeah
one company. Uh, but these two, uh, the, e- entries in particular, both of them are these, like, once in, feel like once in a lifetime kind of- Yeah ... campaigns. But this one in particular, Pocket-Sized Halftime Show, I didn't get to see either of these in my first round of judging. Mm-hmm. I only saw them in the second round.
But this one, essentially, the, the problem they were trying to solve was they couldn't... They didn't feel like they could afford a Super Bowl spot, but they wanted to engage in some way, and so they were like, "Well, what if we just run a halftime show of our own during the Super Bowl? But then what, what talent would we involve?"
And then they, they attached to a narrative that an artist was... Which was the... Who was the artist? Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne was, uh, sn-
Kalie: Snubbed.
Cheryl: Uh, Lil Wayne was snubbed, uh, from the previous halftime show, I think. Mm-hmm. And so they were like, "Well, what if we gave Lil Wayne the floor?" But they also kind of, like, leaned into the, the brief of, like, s- Lil Wayne, small, the giants, the, like, the small giant thing and, like, Pocket-Sized Halftime Show.
And so, they... And they did this, so for, I believe the whole weekend, like, every match was interrupted by a halftime show that, like, flipped the perspective to landscape and did, like, a full production value com- combination live action and full, uh, rendered video Full on halftime show with a, a song and characters from the game, and b- and the craft of everything in the, the video, right?
Like, so many references to the game. The Coldplay meme is there. Yeah. Uh, Kiss Cam meme is there. There's, there's like so many things there that just, uh, it, it just felt like a love letter. And, and what they ended up with was, uh, we kept coming back to, like, the, the impact, like, the, the major media mentions.
Yeah. Like, if your goal is to get press during the Super Bowl, and you've got Billboard and Campaign Magazine and other folks giving you press time during that media cycle without a Super Bowl ad, that is achieving your goals.
Kalie: Absolutely. And I think it, I mean, they did get a lot of gaming press too, but it was able to transcend gaming into cultural and mainstream in a way that is hard no matter what.
But when you're already entering in a completely competitive media landscape leading up to the Super Bowl, it was, it was incredible. And I know we only have a couple minutes left, so let's talk about the Grand Prix, which was Copycats Welcome. So, for Copycats Welcome, w- it's, it was Clash Royale, right? Yes.
'Cause Clash Royale is one of probably the most popular mobile game, but they have a lot of knock-offs and a lot of copycats. And as we know, IP issues are huge in mobile gaming, and so they created such a brilliant campaign to solve this problem. Do you wanna share?
Cheryl: Yeah. They, uh, basically they said, "Hey, we acknowledge that these, these copycats exist," and they created, uh, basically a web form where you could ex- tell how much time you had spent in that game and how much relative investment you had given, and that would translate into an offer for in-game currency that you could use in Clash Royale to either come back to Clash Royale or use it for the first time, and presumably a, a generous amount of currency.
And the case video showed a lot of folks talking about the, like, the message they sent to the community, right? And the thing that stuck out for me here was, like, how players felt like their time was valued. Yeah. Like, how they felt like... And, and it, as a, a video game professor, like, I hear my, my students talk about, like, how sometimes they feel guilty about spending money on micro-transactions.
And I know I have, like, downloaded the wrong game sometimes, and, like, that doesn't feel good. Sometimes you get h- like, a couple levels in, you realize this isn't the one you thought it was 'cause, like, they've done a lot of investment on the first- Yeah ... three levels, and it just falls right off. And then you're like, "Well, what do I, what do I do about that money?
Maybe I just don't wanna engage in this genre." And so, what's lovely about this is it kind of just, it's this, this, it's just this blank slate. It's like, "Hey, it doesn't matter if, like, you got tricked or if you spent money in other places. You are welcome here. Your time is honored. Come back and, and give this a shot, and, uh, no judgment."
And it, it, it makes it, kind of reduces the stakes of that really difficult to navigate discoverability problem- Yeah ... on the app stores in a way that celebrated players, uh, and, and it seemed to resonate. And, and the results were undeniable. Like, w- like, millions of players.
Kalie: I think it was 1.65 million new players and over 5 million reengaged players.
Cheryl: Yes, just, just bonkers c- like, impact. Like, very difficult to ignore. And then obviously they're a big game, so they, they can do that swing. Yeah. But, like, uh, it's still, uh- When you set clear goals and you do that sort of stuff, and then the quality of that, you know, part of that is in the case study as well, being able to show, like, that real community engagement.
Mm-hmm. Of ... Sometimes it's like you see one or two influencers, and then it's like a string of 20 people talking, and, uh, you see the other stuff in the supporting notes. You're like, "Okay, it does really seem like this genuinely resonated, and the numbers are there."
Kalie: Yeah.
Cheryl: Uh, but it sends this... I, I liked that it sent the message that player time matters.
Kalie: Mm-hmm.
Cheryl: Uh, and that it's, it's okay if you make mistakes. It's okay if you go and experiment with these other people. You're always welcome back, or... I, I liked, I really liked that, and I loved that, that, that seemed to resonate with players.
Kalie: And to solve a problem just in a constructive way of, um, maybe there's lawsuits, too, but they aren't just out there suing people or talking about how horrible this is for the industry, but instead turning it into a positive, a very real problem.
Cheryl: And it's a confidence in the quality of your own game- Yes ... right, is like-
Kalie: 100% ... "
Cheryl: We don't need to do that. We know that we have what it takes. Just, just come back and give us a chance."
Kalie: Yeah. So, Cheryl, I'm gonna end with one final question, since we probably only have 30 seconds left. After seeing all of this, what do you hope that brands who are going to be activated in in-game take away?
Like, if you were invited back on the jury next year, what would you like to see?
Cheryl: I think, you know, if there's one thing you take away from the Skittles case study it's that gamers are not a monolith. There are many subgenres of gamers, and knowing which, which community within gaming you're engaging with, having strong goals, strong success criteria, and communicating how you hit those, uh, those things are a path to better success.
Uh, also, you know, I talk a lot about this in my book, but the gamers of today are not the gamers from 10 or 20 years ago. If you're making your experiences for what you wanted when you were growing up, you might be missing the plot because the gamers of today were raised in a world where Roblox and Minecraft and blockier graphics and more accessible, comforting, casual gameplay is the norm.
And so, uh, even if you're not developing in those environments, be careful, like, what you place value in. Do, do you really need to spend a ton of money on really great graphics on your, uh, on your standalone game? Silent cleaning says no, right? Like, spend... But quality of gameplay, gamers know. They know if you've done your homework, and that, I think, is a big, big takeaway for me is, like, gamers know.
Yeah. They can tell, and, uh, they're gravitating towards places where, uh, the craft is there, the Skittles fruit, the, the silent cleaning, um, going back to Clash Royale with the, the big offers, right? So, uh, seek out partnerships with game developers, and there are a lot of game developers looking for work that'd be happy to talk to you about your activations if you're, if you're a brand looking to d- work in this space.
So, there's lots of opportunity there, or you could pick up my book, The Game Development Strategy Guide, to, w- or just read the free first chapter that talks about the motivators of play. Uh, there's lots of material out there for you to learn more and engage gamers where they are.
Kalie: Cheryl, thank you so much for joining me on the Navic Podcast, and it was such a pleasure serving on the jury with you, and now it's time for us to go have some rosé.
Cheryl: I look forward to that. Thank you so much.
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