Brand: Pringles
Agency: GREY London
Campaign: Meet Zombie Frank
Why the campaign rocks:
A lot of us might not get it, but we surely don’t want to miss the buzz train of gaming and metaverse. Gamers are one of the most loyally engaged communities online, but equally true is their disdain for ads. Brands have been scrambling for in-game placements but this case from Pringles UK showed that it is good to widen our understanding of gamers before pressing play.
It’s a great example of a brand truly understanding culture and thinking less like a snack brand and more like a gaming one. The key element here was using Twitch, a widely followed streaming platform for gamers where influencers walk through techniques. The idea is brilliantly staged. A zombie character called Frank leaves a live game to attack a can of Pringles and then becomes a brand influencer for fans to interact with for two weeks, before returning to the game.
The complexities of this collaboration among the developers, the games publisher, Xbox, and the influencer must have been formidable. But I’m sure the nod it got from gamers made the process totally worth it. What an epic mash-up of influencer marketing, gaming, film and product placement.
— As told to Christina Moniz