In a recent presentation at the 2024 IAB Playfronts, SuperAwesome’s Chief Strategy Officer (and general gaming expert), Nick Walters, shed light on how gaming platforms like Roblox serve as a modern-day canvas for creativity and brand interaction, especially for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
The world of skins and digital fashion remains a largely unexplored possibility for many brands looking to connect with young audiences, but the scale of the opportunity available to them is undeniable. 56% of Gen Z gamers report that styling their avatar is more important than styling themselves in the physical world, and in 2023, the average Roblox player amended their avatar eight times a day.
At SuperAwesome, we think digital goods will become a foundation of commerce for the next generation. We’re developing the tools that will enable brands to participate and interact with their target audiences in these digital spaces.
We recently completed our first trial campaign of a tool we named the ‘Item Storefront’, a white-label web page that allows players to browse “official” items from a game or brand. Players simply enter their Roblox username to claim the items and unlock UGC limiteds (special categories of virtual items on Roblox that have limited availability and are created by users), which they can collect by launching into the specific Roblox game.
In our test, we partnered with Roblox content creator, IAmSanna, and the popular Roblox role-play game, Club Roblox, created by Block Evolution Studios.
We released a limited range of Club Roblox x IAmSanna items, hosted on a bespoke Item Storefront. IAmSanna’s YouTube content encouraged players to unlock these items via our storefront, before launching into Club Roblox to play.
We had two aims with this activation: firstly, we wanted to check that our technology worked (important), and secondly, we wanted to evaluate the impact offering free limited items had on user engagement and retention. Knowing what we do about the power of influencers and the importance of avatar styling in Roblox, we were confident that the test would generate some interesting stats.
Unsurprisingly, the free UGC limiteds proved extremely useful in driving both engagement and retention across the Item Storefront. IAmSanna’s content drove a 5.4% clickthrough rate to the Item Storefront. Of the kids who visited the Storefront, 99% added a free item to their cart. 88% of those checked out; 65% pressed the button to launch Roblox; and 51% collected items in Club Roblox.
These percentage conversion rates were considerably higher than any we’ve seen in our previous kid-facing activations, and showed the power of leveraging UGC limiteds and the Item Storefront for brand campaigns.
The test wasn’t without its issues. The most interesting was the prevalence of bots programmed to exploit limited UGC offerings – we had to quickly patch the product mid-test to ensure the security of the items (more content on what we learned from that, coming soon).
In upcoming tests, we’ll be looking at ways to increase those conversion rates, while experimenting with unlock requirements to claim more exciting items. We look forward to sharing our findings and hopefully proving our greater hypothesis that gaming platforms are the next big retail opportunity for under-18 brands.
If you’re a brand interested in connecting with Gen Z and Gen Alpha in gaming environments, but you’re not sure how to link your spend to ROI, this could be a particularly exciting opportunity. Feel free to reach out to our team to discover more.
