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By Kim Jae-heun
The game and luxury goods industries don't seem to have much in common. But global fashion houses have chosen games as their future marketing strategy to attract young customers and those in the Chinese market.
Last June, British luxury brand Burberry launched an online game called "B Surf." This is the third time the fashion house has introduced a multiplayer game where the characters appear in Burberry outfits.
Other luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Hermes also have their own mobile application games, which are easy to play and free to download.
Chanel opened pop-up stores in cosmopolitan cities like Hong Kong and Seoul to invite customers to play its game and experience its luxury items.
Games have enabled luxury firms to connect to the younger generations who will be their future customers.
According to U.S. marketing company PMX Agency, those born between the early 1980s and early 2000s will take over 45 percent of the global luxury market by 2025.
They are used to forming a community in the game platforms and communicate well there with each other. Games are said to be another social platform for young people.
Jeon Seong-min, a professor at the College of Business of Gachon University, said luxury firms are collaborating with game companies to shed their old image.
"Luxury brands have grown old. They don't want their handbags to be viewed as something an old lady would own. By exposing their brand logos and luxury products in games, the fashion houses want young people to become familiar with the label and win their loyalty," Jeon said.
In 2016, Louis Vuitton attracted viral attention by hiring as a model a game character from "Final Fantasy XIII," developed by Japanese firm Square Enix. After that, the French fashion giant went on to sign a two-year partnership deal with Riot Games last September.
Riot Games is best known for "League of Legends" (LoL), which became the game with the highest active player count by 2013. Since the end of last year, Louis Vuitton has been providing virtual costumes for game characters online.
It also crafted a trophy case for LoL's world championship held in Paris last November. It also made a banner to advertise the brand in the broadcast final round of an esports tournament.
Kang Jeong-heon, a senior market intelligence analyst at Euromonitor International, said the marketing with LoL is quite effective as the video game is enjoyed over a long time. Normally, casual players spend a half-hour at a time in the game.
"The game and luxury goods industries may look very different from one another, but they are in a complementary relationship that can create a synergy effect," Kang said.
In fact, many companies are beginning to adopt "gamification" in their corporate marketing, education and social contribution activities. Gamification is a strategy utilizing games in various fields to encourage engagement with a product or service.
The gamification market is growing rapidly worldwide. Fortune magazine reported the market's estimated value was $6.3 billion in 2019 and the value will soar to $37 billion in seven years.
Another reason behind fashion houses using gamification is to target Chinese customers, who make up 35 percent of the global luxury market. China is the No.1 player in both the game and luxury industries.
The mobile phone game industry grown by 13.5 times since 2013. Advisory firm Gartner said recently half of the people playing games in China are women and luxury firms' game marketing has enjoyed big success there.
"Luxury fashion brands are trying various marketing strategies to attract Chinese customers amid plunging sales in the duty free sector due to COVID-19. They will continue to attempt similar game marketing plans," Jeon said.
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