Richa Vij
Digital

Zapak dares gamers with Rs 2 crore ad campaign

Zapak is spending Rs 2 crore on an ad campaign to popularise its Live Multiplayer Games

Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd, the Reliance ADA Group owned gaming entertainment company, has rolled out a 360 degree campaign to promote its new offering, Live Multiplayer Games. The multiplayer games will enable people located in different places to participate in a single game at the same time. The campaign’s theme is Panga Ho Jaye and it has been running for the last four weeks.

Arun Mehra, chief marketing officer, Zapak.com, says the company is spending “half a million dollars”, or about Rs 2 crore, on this campaign. The campaign will continue for another two-three weeks on various platforms. The ad spend breakup on the four media is television (50 per cent), Internet (20 per cent), out of home (20 per cent) and radio (10 per cent).

Zapak dares gamers with Rs 2 crore ad campaign
A patient says, 'Wanna feel small?'
Zapak dares gamers with Rs 2 crore ad campaign
A man challenges to crunch
the competitior
Zapak dares gamers with Rs 2 crore ad campaign
Another one eager to make his
opponent feel like 'dry pigeon droppings'
Zapak dares gamers with Rs 2 crore ad campaign
A cool dude asks for
a game of 'Su-do-ku'
Zapak dares gamers with Rs 2 crore ad campaign
Panga Ho Jaye
The 16 multiplayer games on Zapak.com include Tic Tac Toe, Saanp Seedhi, Sudoku, chess and cricket. To spice up the competition, the players can send taunts to each other by choosing one from the audio taunts available. The campaign is based on the same concept – inciting a person to compete.

Five television commercials (TVCs) were created, of which two are currently running on all niche as well as general entertainment channels such as National Geographic, Discovery, Zee TV, Zee Cinema and MTV. Though the official creative agency for Zapak is Marching Ants, the TVCs have been created by the production house, Ideas@work, which has also worked on the creatives for the outdoor media.

Prashant Godbole, co-founder, Ideas@work, says, “The thing about multiplayer games is that they are competitive. Zapak had shown interest in the idea of challenging somebody for a game. So, for us, the objective was to bring out the competitive streak in ordinary people.”

The 20-second TVC opens with a shot of a patient sitting on a wheelchair, saying, “Hey you! You wanna play me?” The subsequent shot features a number of people – a working man, a ‘cool dude’, an old man and a nun – all laughing cunningly while saying the same thing. The ad closes with the shot of the nun saying, “Come to momma!”

The second TVC, also a 20-seconder, opens with the patient in the wheelchair challenging, “Wanna feel small?” A man says, “Wanna feel like food crumbs in my cavity?” Another says, “You wanna feel like dry pigeon droppings?” The insults continue from different characters who don’t come across as intimidating at all.

Mehra says the ad is targeted at “anybody who is interested in playing Sudoku, chess or cricket”, though the primary target audience for Zapak is the 12-25 years’ age group. The TVC, though, shows people of all age groups.

According to Mehra, after the two TVCs were launched, an average of 30,000-40,000 people have visited the site daily and played multiplayer games.

The outdoor campaign is running in 10 major cities, including Delhi and the national capital region, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Pune. Mehra adds that while the other media campaigns will go on for another two weeks, they plan to continue the OOH campaign for three weeks.

Zapak has rolled out banners on its site. Mehra says that as long as the advertisements can keep driving the traffic to the multiplayer games, the online campaigns will continue. Zapak is working on viral videos with an online interactive agency, which Mehra declined to name. The viral will be launched by December 20. Zapak is also running radio spots on Fever 104 FM and Big 92.7 FM.

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