Since the beginning of quarantine, Nintendo's Animal Crossing series' newest video game,
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) has been keeping players busy with building our perfect island paradise.
With it's release in Q1 of 2020, sales for Nintendo Switches and the game it's self skyrocketed, catching the eye of many brands. In the battle to stay relevant during the Covid-19 pandemic, brands took advantage and used ACNH as a platform for advertising.
A new update for the game is set to be available for download on Sept. 30 2020. This update is said to introduce the much awaited Fall season to many players in the Northern Hemisphere. With this update, all users will also be able to experience the Halloween event for the first time in New Horizons.
The game has gone through 2 other major seasonal updates which gave us a Spring full of pink cherry blossom trees and a Summer update which allowed us to deep-sea-dive in the game.
Through the months, excitement about the game has risen more and more as user await new updates and added features for the game.
This is where quick thinking brands come into play. In the previous months we have seen brands like fast-food chain KFC, NFL's Detroit Lions, High-fashion houses Marc Jacobs and Valentino and even the Presidential Campaign for candidate Joe Biden launch advertising campaigns in-game by providing players with downloadable QR codes for their designs.
Since the beginning, brands have been using ANCH as a PG platform for PR. It amazes me how brands were able to see an opportunity for advertising in this game. The game itself does not have slots for advertising, however, they can tap into it organically using QR codes and partnerships with content creators.
With this up coming Fall / Halloween update, I think this is an opportunity for brands to do some more promoting in-game. The new updates are a great excuse for Marc Jacobs to offer new QR codes or maybe new brands testing the waters with this kind of advertising.
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