Video Game Marketing Hits All Our Processors

This week at university, we took a look at how customers process data in their minds, split into three categories: auditory, visual and kinaesthetic. In this blog, I will look at how a small studio were able to tick all these sensory triggers and how video game publishers can emulate the kinaesthetic processor.

The processors in brief:

Auditory Processor: Things that the customer hears; this isn’t limited to radio adverts but also things like word-of-mouth.

Visual Processor: This refers to things the customer sees, in promotional material, product cover, etc.

Kinaesthetic Processor: Kinaesthetic processing refers to how the product acts on our feelings and sensations; a typical example is a free food sample.

People use different cognitive skills to interact with these processors, and each individual will have a different level of cognitive skills.

Every individual will process product information in their own way; I myself enjoy product trials, it’s why I head over to gaming events multiple times per year (well that, and because someone pays me to!). But even within those events, a product has to stand out. They are stacked up against other games, sometimes hundreds of other games.

As such, developers and publishers have to ensure their game both looks good and sounds good. Particularly in gaming, visual processing can be applied to both the graphics in a video game, and artwork on covers or promotional material such as posters. A prime example of a game that perfects this balance is Cuphead, a high octane run ‘n’ gun game inspired by old school cartoons, with jazzy music in the background. If you’re not familiar, check out the clip below and you’ll see why people fell instantly in love.

The above trailer was shown at the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2015. E3 draws in over 50,000 attendees every year with thousands more tuning in online to view streams. Developers Studio MDHR had to make sure their game stood out in a crowd of thousands.

They managed to tick the three key processors: auditory, - the jazzy, upbeat soundtrack; kinaesthetic – the game is exciting to play; and visual – the game looks beautiful, thus ensuring they drew in attention from huge groups of customers who are all affected by at least one of these sensory processors.

Other ways to reach Kinaesthetic customers:

The problem with customers who enjoy a kinaesthetic trial, is that video games don’t always translate well into demos, particularly if there isn’t someone there to walk the potential customer through, not all games are pick up and play. And in our earlier example of Cuphead, we can see that even with someone walking a customer through, the game doesn’t always work.

This, added to the fact that the customer may not be the consumer, is in part a contributing factor as to why we don’t get demo discs often, and why we don’t see console pods in shops very often.

So if a demo is unavailable, publishers will often release a gameplay trailer of their game; this way, they can try to emulate a trial but ensure they show what they believe the customer wants, they can showcase their best moments in game and how it can look, not necessarily how it will look.

Be sure to check out my recent blog on Brand Loyalty and Exclusivity.