Actimel has launched on online game Fortnite, giving players who visit the brand’s Immunity Station an in-game advantage. The brand features within the Zombie Hunter map on the game, giving players the chance to give their characters “an extra shield potion”. This gives them “30-second protection, in the form of an aura, to fight off the enemy and slay oncoming zombies”. The campaign also includes a series of digital films on Actimel’s social channels, as well as paid media.
With over 350 million registered users, around 5% of Fortnight gamers live in the UK. Actimel joins brands who are turning to Fortnite to reach this niche audience. Heinz released a Fortnite game called SOS Tomatoes, educating gamers on soil degradation. Hot sauce brand Frank’s RedHot launched a The Floor is Flava game, set on “an immersive chicken wing-shaped island” where gamers had to climb Mount Frank before “diving into delicious doom”. And Coca-Cola chose Fortnite to launch limited-edition flavour variant Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Byte.
“We’re excited to bring a unique integration with a clear solution to Fortnite’s engaged audience to show how Actimel can be incorporated into your daily routine,” said Danone UK & Ireland Head of Marketing, Rachel Wright. “With our recent research showing that nearly a third of Brits lack knowledge in knowing how to support their immune system health, this is a unique and interesting way for us to show how we are bringing immune support to the top of consumers’ agenda.”
Actimel is not the first brand integrate itself into an online game, as said, it’s not even the first to work with Fortnite, but few will have done it better than this. It is all about fit. The game creates a credible and engaging context to deliver the brand’s priority immunity message. No fluff, no pretending to be ‘down with the kids’, no forced fit, just a great big ACTIMEL IMMUNITY STATION embedded in the player experience with an in-game benefit attached to a real-world product claim. Awesome. It also delivers the message in a way that an ad would not have been able to do, to an audience that the brand probably struggles to reach. Sometimes, edgy, digital marketing targeting a new audience is interesting, but it struggles to work for wonderful, unedgy, mass appeal brands. This is clever because it ticks both boxes… seamlessly.