Video Games: The New Runway

We know it now, innovative brands want to engage with younger people and meet them where they already are. They do not watch TV or use other legacy media.

The best place to do that is in video games. Moreover, the most significant gaming opportunity for advertisers lies in esports. Gaming is now the new social media, and esports is the new NFL or Premier League. Millennials and Gen-Z are hard to reach segments. However, if done authentically and in a way that adds value to these communities, this form of media has a way of being so much more engaging in new ways. People want to participate, want to connect and be a part of something. Gamers want to support brands that they believe support them. Industry insiders [1] have been quoted signally a new digital future for fashion products:

Erin Wayne, Senior Director of Community and Creator Marketing at Twitch, told Nylon, “Fashion working with gaming is kind of the next obvious step in the evolution of fashion.”

“Fashion brands are primarily infiltrating gaming as a marketing tool,” points out Rachael Stott, futures analyst at strategic foresight consultancy the Future Laboratory. “With doors to physical stores shut, gaming devices have the potential to build communities. Spending hours crafting a digital replica to show your peers, currently makes sense,” she says.

“Fashion has become such a checklist. And I feel like I personally want to try to do it differently,” Gvasalia Balenciaga’s Artistic Director said in an interview with WWD.

For a fashion house like Gucci, the incredible enthusiasm for esports and gaming becoming mainstream does not just mean the opportunity to attach itself to pop culture or to reach new audiences — it also means new monetization opportunities. “Audience engagement has changed dramatically since the advent of social media and is evolving at high speed. People are constantly exposed to information, images, and videos. Everything is accessible, just one swipe away,” Paolo Mascio, president of Yoox, told GQ. “We firmly believe that games and interactive initiatives have business relevance. They are crucial to offering an innovative and personalized shopping experience, which customers, millennials, and gen-Z, in particular, are increasingly asking for [2].

Whilst 2020 has proven the incredible success of these partnerships, it has also opened new opportunities of monetization for brands and changed the traditional forms of e-commerce. Given that gaming giants also massively benefit from the cultural relevance and revenue generated from these lucrative integrations, it’s a win for both worlds — and a trend that looks set to continue in the future.

Watch this video to get an idea of how luxury fashion in 2020 places itself in gaming and the emergence of the video game luxury fashion critic.

In the same year, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, said he was more worried about Fortnite than Disney. What was once viewed as gaming platforms are now considered as global communities.

Discuss

• What do you think of fashion and gaming coming together to sell luxury fashion?

Share your thoughts with your peers in the comments below.

References:

1. The Future Of Fashion And Gaming: E-Commerce https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/03/17/the-future-of-fashion-and-gaming-e-commerce/?sh=35ba07f63be3
2. Why gaming is the next big thing in high fashion: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/fashion/article/fashion-games-burberry-louis-vuitton-hermes