Luxury: the new mobile mini-gaming craze

Not so long ago, the words "luxury" and "gaming" didn't seem to belong in the same universe. But they do. Today, more and more brands are approaching the world of virtual games and mini-games to invent new marketing strategies, to enrich their brand's storytelling and the range of interactive experiences they offer to customers.

Since then, Pokemon Go avatars have displayed Longchamp bags, Animal Crossing has seen the entry of Valentino and Marc Jacobs, and Louis Vuitton is collaborating with League of Legends. The LVMH flagship actually launched three mobile mini-games inspired by the brand's universe this summer. Via the application, Louis Vuitton offers traditional games such as checkers or Crabs, declined in a virtual version thanks to an interface inspired by the emblematic codes of the brand, but also the exhibition "200 Trunks, 200 Visionaries", launched to celebrate the tradition of the trunk maker.

This summer will have seen a fair amount of new playful and virtual experiences: the Hermès house has embarked on the adventure by offering, during the summer season, a mini-game on Instagram, created by illustrator Manon Carrour and entitled "Jumping Bag". The game is part of the "carte blanche" content series entrusted by the brand to multidisciplinary artists; it features three iconic Hermès bag models: Kelly, Constance and Victoria. The bags are the protagonists of an obstacle course set in the equestrian world, an obvious hint to the brand's DNA.

This new alliance between luxury and gaming, which involves most of the prestige brands, is explained by the desire to build loyalty among Millenials and Genaration Z.

The first challenge that brands have had to face is purely ideological. It is also important in the psychology of consumers. How to reconcile the concept of the "unattainable dream", the rarity of luxury products, and gaming, whose universe is by nature relaxed, accessible and increasingly popular? Marketing experts have found a meeting point between these two worlds: it lies in the feeling of euphoria, which one would experience in the same way when discovering a new virtual game or when acquiring an exclusive good.

Gaming can thus become a real marketing lever for all brands, facilitating the creation and development of new business models.

If the pandemic period has contributed to accelerate the rise of the digital world and video games, the last decade had already seen the rise of the relationship between brands and online games. In 2011, Dior presented its makeup advertising campaign playing with video game codes and the same year, Hermès was inspired by the game Space Invaders for its communication. Initially anecdotal, these links quickly multiplied. In 2016, Louis Vuitton took a new step and established Lightning, the heroine of the legendary video game series Final Fantasy, which has 100 million players worldwide, as the new muse for its spring-summer ready-to-wear collection. Since then, the world of luxury goods could no longer ignore the gaming world and miss out on major opportunities.

The industry is attracting more and more fans. According to Financesonline, there were 2.69 billion video game players in the world in 2020. This figure will rise to 3.07 billion by 2023 based on a projected 5.6% year-on-year growth. The global gaming market generated $159.3 billion in revenue in 2020, nearly half of which comes from the Asia-Pacific market, 49% of them are women and 64% belong to the Millenials generation.