It can often be difficult to stand out in the competitive world of acquisitions and mergers. Here’s how Ansarada used a gaming app to highlight their brand. Melvis Ohenlen reports
Australian technology company Ansarada was looking to make a mark on its industry by doing something its competitors hadn’t done before. The niche company, which develops virtual data rooms for mergers and acquisitions (M&A), has long been a challenger brand to two dominating US companies. Hard-work and creativity was necessary for it to increase brand awareness. It felt the best way to do this was via gamification, and launched The M&A Game.
The decision to launch the game was based on a strategic move to engage corporate customers. Ansarada took a new brand approach to make an impact in the fairly conservative market it operates in. The success of the gaming industry also compelled Ansarada to take the leap.
Its M&A Game, created by 3RDSENSE, was originally launched in 2014, but has been so successful the company released a third version of the game this summer. Before the latest version of the game was released, Ansarada conducted research among players to discover what they wanted from the game. The brand found that users wanted to play against their friends and family, so the update came with new features for players to get excited about. It now has a multi-player mode, and allows both private and public games over a time duration of one day, three days or one week, as well as a range of new categories and more leadership boards.
Listening to customers
The M&A Game can be played via a free mobile app on iOS and Android and allows players to ‘build an empire’ by buying, selling and merging their way to corporate domination. The game is designed to appeal to the competitive nature of M&A bankers.
Various different channels were used to market the game. Ansarada ran a global PR campaign that focused on the skills people use to close M&A deals and to succeed in the market. Its online presence included digital display adverts and social media; Facebook and Twitter pages dedicated to The M&A Game were set up. The brand is looking at face-to-face activity and may hold some casual events in pubs around London this month.
Challenges
When asked what challenges the company faced with the campaign, marketing manager at Ansarada, Lila Elias said there weren’t any major hiccups: “If anything the game became very popular very quickly. We initially launched the iOS app only and we had to speed up production of the Android version of the game to meet player needs.”
Speaking about the popularity of the game, she continued: “We originally hoped for about 4000 players in the first six months playing, on average, for six minutes. We are currently over 43,000 users and the average session time is still about 13 minutes.”