It is traditionally – arguably – three Ps that drive marketers: Price, Product and Promotion. Now there’s another. The GMA takes a peek at a fourth Pee . . .
What do global drinks brands Guinness and Smirnoff have in common with the Anthony Nolan blood cancer charity – or Canadian telco Telus share with UK online casino Betsafe?
They have all run successful gamification campaigns with Captive Media, a company that . . . er . . . splashed out in the midst of a major recession to bring a new way of advertising to a particularly captive male audience.
Captive Media is the brainchild of two Cambridge engineering graduates, who dreamed up the world’s first pee-controlled fun machine (“imagine if there was a video game you could control with your pee”), aiming to “engage a generation who fast-forwarded TV ads and distrusted glossy broadcast messages”. They built their dream machine and have been installing it in gents’ loos around the world, to take advantage of a truly engaging branding opportunity through gamification.
The GMA first brought you the story of Captive Media back in 2012 and since then the gamification experience it has on offer has been installed in 15 countries. It has also won technology innovation awards from the Guardian, Virgin Media, StartUp 100, Showdown and Drum.
Gordon MacSween conceived Captive Media in the US, market tested the concept in New Zealand and pitched the business idea to his student friend Mark Melford in France (on a golf course, naturally). The two (pictured left, with Melford on the left) share a love of technology – Melford sold his first product at the age of 14; a game for the BBC Microcomputer.
Recently, they took an irreverant swipe at the US Election by offering a ‘Wee The People’ loo-based game that captured 597,345 votes in four weeks in bars from New York to New Zealand and was the biggest poll of overseas voting preferences in the Trump/Clinton race – with Trump the runaway winner in the unpopularity stakes (the game involved ‘throwing’ tomatoes at candidates).
MacSween told the GMA: “The reaction to the game has been phenomenal. Men absolutely love it and they talk about it afterwards . . . it’s a great talking point for the bars and a nice pre-cursor to the ads we normally run to pay for the network.”
Charities such as Red Nose Day, Sports Relief, Macmillan Cancer and DrinkAware used the fun technology to raise awareness among their target audience of affluent ABC1 men. The Anthony Nolan charity drove up online donor registration of 74.9 per cent after players enjoyed a tactical game of Wee The People around the UK General Election; 163,896 men played the game in 14 days and 233,531 visited the website. Richard Davidson, director of communications for Anthony Nolan declared it: “A match made in heaven, Captive Media and Anthony Nolan.” 
Telus reports 80 per cent unprompted recall of its brand by the target group of millennials introduced to its Optik HD product – thanks to topical branded games including skiing for the Winter Olympics and soccer for the World Cup.
Betsafe offered Rugby World Cup tickets to high scoring urinal game players engaging more than a quarter of a million men, promoting the new betting site and pushing sign-ups.
A five-week campaign for Guinness Match Pint – a two-for-one offer – ran during the 2015 Six Nations: 93 per cent of players recalled Match Pint, 98 per cent the offer, with app downloads 2.6 times higher in Captive Media games venues.
So, what’s next for Captive Media? MacSween had a chat with the GMA – read what he reckons is in store for modern digital marketers with a sense of fun, here.
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