Xfinity Mobile’s campaign is popular for providing a gamified experience on Pinterest, the social networking sites site that encourages people to create pinboards of visual inspiration and has a customer base that is two-thirds women with 85 % of smartphone users. With women accounting for 70 % of total mobile gamers, Xfinity Mobile converted its Pinterest advertising into mini smartphone games aimed at engaging consumers with a branded experience while showcasing main features of the mobile service of Xfinity.
As Pinterest users are searching for photos to find in their pinboards, a mobile game will provide a “thumb-stop” experience that prolongs Xfinity’s branding visibility.
The campaign comes as Pinterest keeps on rising. The software’s monthly average user base (MAU) increased from a year earlier, per the quarterly study, 13 % to 96 million in the US in Q2. However, as the coronavirus pandemic dampened advertisement demand, Pinterest saw U.S. profits dropped by 2 per cent to $232 million. Xfinity’s campaign may mean that as the economy improves, marketers are moving to the platform.
By developing a gamified Pinterest campaign, Xfinity is able to engage with an increasing audience of customers who are harder to reach through conventional media. According to the Entertainment Tech Association, Smartphone’s are the most common way for people to play video games, with 61 % of gamers using their mobile devices to play, 52 % for game consoles and 49 % personal computers.
Xfinity Mobile is the newest brand in a strategy to engage consumers in delivering gamified content. Recess, a cannabidiol (CBD)-infused seltzer brand, launched an online game last week as part of the campaign that involves a pop-up experience on retro-inspired online Poolside.FM. In the last year, fashion company Burberry has developed many games including the one that allows players to wear their gaming avatars in their clothes. Recently, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chobani and Jack in the Box run promotions featuring gamified content.
Wireless networks are a major source of innovation for Xfinity’s parent company Comcast, which announced a 51 per cent rise in its wireless lines to 2, 39 million in Q2 a year ago, outstripping the 5.8 per cent growth in high-speed Internet access to households and companies. That increase compares with the decrease in video subscribers, which dropped 5.9 per cent over the period to 20.4 million as more households cancelled cable television service, according to its quarterly report.
