playful brands

how brands can harness the power of play

On May 14, 2022, long lines formed outside IKEA at Vienna Westbahnhof. The reason wasn't a sale event, but rather the IKEA Board Game Night, which featured over 100 analog board games and saw more than 500 people sitting at the tables in the IKEA restaurant, just playing. The surprising and overwhelming success of this event is tied to a simple truth that's often overlooked amidst chatbots, self-checkouts, and the metaverse: people enjoy spending time with other people.

The more digital our world becomes, the more we crave genuine, interpersonal experiences. Two years of the pandemic have only intensified this longing. Analog games bring people together around a table and create immersive, shared worlds where we experience adventures, solve puzzles, tackle challenges, negotiate, conspire, or cooperatively save the world—all without silly headsets. Board games, card games, and role-playing games also have long-term positive effects on players. They enhance strategic thinking, decision-making, adaptability, resilience, and cooperation—skills that are more sought after than ever in companies and agencies.

The “Zukunftsinstitut” (Future Institute) has dedicated an entire report to the topic of "Playful Business", making a distinction between "Game" (rule-based play) and "Play" (human play instinct). They recommend blending both to create a playful corporate environment. However, the specifics of this are vaguely described, and the authors often bump into the dilemma that outcome-driven play isn't truly "play". According to Johan Huizinga, all culture originates from play, and seriousness is simply non-play. With this thought foundation, I'd like to highlight three ways brands can harness the creative and connective power of play:

playful minds

Invest in analog games and create temporal and physical spaces to play more within and among your teams. Especially suitable for this are beginner-friendly, cooperative games like Just One, Perfect Match, The Mind, or the starter set of Dungeons & Dragons. Over time, players develop a "Playful Mind", which denotes intellectual, emotional, and organizational flexibility. This is particularly vital for companies undergoing change. They also learn to handle unpredictability and foster a healthy culture of accepting mistakes.

playful business

Provide LEGO® and crafting materials, allowing your teams to invent things, services, solutions, or express ideas and emotions that otherwise wouldn't have a platform. Using LEGO® and Serious Play® is one of the most effective methods to balance seriousness and play or productivity and playful freedom, thus creating true playfulness even in outcome-driven workshops.

playful experiences

Companies should leverage their resources to bring people together playfully and foster creative playfulness. Brands can serve as enablers, creating spaces filled with emotions and playfulness. These can range from massive Board Game Nights, exclusive Dungeons & Dragons sessions, to playrooms brimming with LEGO® bricks. The main thing is that these spaces aren't overly burdened with sales or customer loyalty expectations, but instead generate unforgettable moments, playful creativity, interpersonal connections, and ultimately, brand love.

what’s the purpose of strategy?

let's be real.

Everyone's talking about "Purpose." Sadly, the term is often misunderstood, and many seem to believe that every company now has to invent some noble intentions or that it's about some kind of ongoing CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) campaign. In reality, "Purpose" primarily means defining a genuine meaning and purpose for a company that goes beyond mere economic growth.

However, many brand managers struggle even with this basic definition, revealing a fundamental issue: How can one articulate a purpose when the only apparent goal of a company is to accumulate wealth – not even for its employees, let alone society – but just for a select few? As a result, the so-called "Purpose" of many brands has a bitter and cynical aftertaste. Who genuinely believes – outside of meeting rooms – that these companies put "people at the center" or that they "fill the world with emotions" and want to make us all "happy"?

We strategists need to confront the topic of Purpose honestly. After all, isn't our professional purpose to challenge nonsense and push clients to be honest with themselves, rather than reinforcing their self-deception? So, if we're not working with social enterprises or impact startups, but with regular capitalist companies with typical capitalist goals, we need to tell them they have two options:

1. Just drop it and don't conjure up a fabricated Purpose.

2. Take their time, hire a competent strategist, reflect on their company's history, involve their employees, and carefully consider how their company became solely a money-making machine. They should ponder if there might be other goals aligned with healthy growth they can pursue.

Strategists should also explain to company leaders that their Purpose doesn't have to sound like a Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations. It's enough if they optimize their company and products not just for spreadsheets but also for the real, everyday lives of their employees and customers.

So, what's the purpose of strategy? Here's a suggestion: "Strategy brings clarity – and clarity begins with truth."

mind games

why strategists should play.

In October 2019, at the Strategy Cuveé of Strategy Austria, nine strategic skills of the future were defined. An initial insight into the results was available at the preview in November, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Only one question remained: How can one learn these skills? The answer, of course, depends heavily on personal and professional circumstances, but there's one exercise that always makes sense: playing board games! Modern, intelligently designed board games are not only incredibly fun but also impart many of the skills that strategists will need in the future. I've observed this in myself and those around me over the past few years and would like to share these experiences through some examples in this piece.

Games, like briefings, define a clear goal, a challenge we must overcome on our way there, resources we can draw upon, processes we can influence, and rules that dictate where the fun ends. To win a game or crack a briefing, one needs a core strategic competency: intuition based on experiences with people, cultures, and unpredictability. Through playing, we gather interpersonal and intercultural experiences, learn to deal with unpredictabilities, and develop a healthy culture of making mistakes.

Storytelling skills will also become increasingly important in the future. Pen & Paper games like Dungeons & Dragons are perfect for this, as they are nothing more than collaborative storytelling where one's imagination intertwines with the stories of fellow players. The "Game Master" provides a physical, cultural, and often ethical framework to the events using game rules and dice, challenging the group's creativity with improvisation and empathy. Through such games, we have the opportunity to practice storytelling not in isolation but in direct exchange, experiencing reactions in real-time.

Strategists are long-term thinkers who often feel they lose to short-term thinkers. Through games, we can recognize that multiple values coexist in the same system, and what matters is which points ultimately lead to victory. Does the best brand win? Does the most money win? Or is it really about fame and recognition? What game is actually being played here? Am I playing for myself, for my team, or for the entire company? Games can help define success more precisely and decide if this definition aligns with the rules of our work environment.

Strategists also play crucial roles in many change processes. Through gaming, we can develop the intellectual, emotional, and organizational flexibility, or "playfulness," required for significant changes. From brilliant abstract games to cooperative team games to complex strategy games, board games offer a vast spectrum of themes and experiences. I can only recommend to anyone working strategically to tap into this potential and play more.

humanity finds a way

on the unpredictability & complexity of human culture.

Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies. Mainly because dinosaurs are cool, but also because of the film's powerful message. Jeff Goldblum, playing the role of chaos theorist Ian Malcolm, beautifully sums it up: “Life finds a way.” Malcolm speaks to the creative chaos that emerges when humans play God. His words, juxtaposed with the bloody dinosaur chaos around him, serve as a warning against trying to control nature and life itself with modern sciences like genetic engineering.

Watching the movie today, I wonder what Malcolm would say about the scientific presumptions evident in the digitization of our society. Just as breeding and keeping living things is about control, so is the comprehensive measurement of humans and the fully automated evaluation and processing of the collected data. However, unlike in Jurassic Park, this isn't about controlling "nature" or "life" but about controlling humans.

Malcolm would likely point to the unimaginable complexity of human life in line with chaos theory, emphasizing that precise planning and control of communication and consumption practices are impossible. Even slight deviations can lead to unpredictable consequences of unforeseen magnitude. The confident promises of artificial intelligence and data-driven marketing might remind him of the illusion of controlling an island full of dinosaurs with software and a handful of staff. Just as the T-Rex didn't eat the goat presented to him when bored park visitors were watching, people won't follow digital power fantasies, even if they're targeted in an “I-want-to-eat-moment” through smart retargeting.

Today's digital leaders, much like the naive park owner John Hammond, rarely question the moral legitimacy of their actions. Malcolm's reminder in Jurassic Park rings true: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote might be seen by a chaos theorist as early warning signs that we're gradually losing control in our fully automated Data Park.

While we probably won't end up being torn apart by rogue Facebook users, there's a real danger for the communication industry, especially for brand and communication strategists. As faith in digital solutions and artificial intelligence rises, trust in our inherent human abilities – the power of ideas, the strength of intuition, and the authority of experience – diminishes. These are all abilities that benefit strategic thinking because they can turn chaos into inspiration and creativity. Strategies that promise control and don't allow for chaos might sell better, but they'll eventually hit a dead end. If we don't want to be consumed by the products we've enthusiastically promoted in recent years, we should stop trying to control the unpredictability and complexity of human culture with more data and smarter tools. Instead, we should realize that our greatest strength lies in being part of the chaos.

data driven irrelevance

how to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, possibly in the right place, and very, very, very possibly the right message.

How to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, possibly in the right place, and very, very, very possibly the right message.

In August 2016, a collective "Oh crap!" moment swept through the marketing industry. Procter & Gamble no longer believed in Facebook targeting! Even though they served ads to "pet owners" and "large families," surprisingly, no more people bought Febreze. OMG. Maybe we should take this opportunity to reflect on what it's really about: relevance.

Whether digital or not, marketing should ideally reach the right person at the right time with the right message — meaning it should be as relevant as possible. Over the past few years, we've invented new technologies, collected vast amounts of data, and tried to define, categorize, and measure the diverse group of people out there. And everything went smoothly: with data-driven optimization and performance-based billing, we could snatch bigger pieces of the pie from established TV and print players, accompanied by the epic narrative of the downfall of old media, which fits our times so well.

Even with data-driven advertising, usually half the money is wasted.

From dusty target groups and perpetually smiling personas, we now had users whose journeys aka experiences aka moments we could finally track and target with appropriate advertising. To eliminate any remaining doubts from our clients, we even started tracking users' eye movements, facial expressions, and gestures, aligning ourselves with neuroscience, believing that more data would lead to more relevance.

But things turned out differently. What used to be bathroom breaks during commercials or "No Ads" stickers are now ad-blockers and terms of service objections. Tracking scares most people. Our "relevance" often overshoots the mark and just becomes creepy. So, even with data-driven advertising, usually half the money is wasted.

Culture is chaos. Culture is creative human failure. Culture is the reason no one suddenly visits your website anymore.

Relevance means "situational importance" (Wikipedia, of course...) and, unlike general importance — significance — it can't be measured in numbers. To deliver the right message to the right person at the right time, possibly in the right place, and very, very, very possibly the right message, we often lack an ingredient that we can neither measure nor artificially create: culture. Not in terms of music, theater, or painting, but in terms of actions and interpretations of people who have to deal with our banners and pre-rolls in their daily lives. Culture is chaos. Culture is creative human failure. Culture is the reason no one suddenly visits your website anymore.

To be clear: Relevance, without a deeper understanding of culture, is neither plannable nor measurable because it depends on the unplannable and immeasurable cultural context.

Not representative? Please...

I'm not arguing against data-driven targeting here, but rather for not blindly relying on data and algorithms. We should always consider cultural contexts in every analysis and planning step. Despite all the tech euphoria and faith in numbers, it should at least be possible to make a marketing decision without backing it up with "data" (source usually "Some-Consumer-Survey US/UK/Canada 2012"). It's time for marketing decision-makers to trust cultural phenomena that are captured without technical measuring devices and defined without numbers. Not representative? Please... Of course, there are "representative" data, e.g., about how many people take the bus to work and how many of them tick one of three preset questions. But a culturally relevant campaign for public transport won't likely arise from these insights.

The best results always come from combinations of human and machine, so also from cultural relevance and data-driven targeting. Alongside technical solutions, we need more human insight and, above all, more trust in its substance. From it, brilliant campaigns with cultural appeal can still emerge, compensating for targeting inefficiencies.

Oh, and if you're wondering where to get all these cultural insights: there are dozens of cultural studies institutes training young people. But be careful, they might be a bit "anti" there because they've been told for twenty years that they're useless for the economy.