BRAND NEW collaboration between BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany and Hashplay: Gaming meets Virtual Reality and live streaming

Video game publisher and distributor, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany, is venturing along innovative paths in the marketing of its game Dark Souls III. The Japanese entertainment supplier is the very first gaming manufacturer to collaborate with the novel new app Hashplay!

This first-class showcase project, steered by its dedicated Media Agency, Maxus, optimally combines two key elements of the gaming industry:

Live streaming: we cannot imagine life without live streaming – particularly in e-sports Virtual Reality: as a new media channel, virtual reality is creating new business opportunities for advertisers in immersive advertising. Experimental and adventurous clients can test innovative advertising concepts on an exciting platform.

Hashplay is a free app, launched just a few weeks ago, combining both live streaming and virtual reality. It provides gaming, sport and music the technological infrastructure of unique 360° locations for live streaming, gaming, sharing and watching in virtual reality. In its current campaign, running until the end of April, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany transforms the start location on Hashplay’s VR platform into a Dark Souls III location – an innovative form of several new adserver controlled virtual reality ad formats.

According to Hien Nguyen, Senior Communication Consultant at Maxus, virtual reality is “[…] a trend which, besides gaming, is successively conquering more mass market areas such as travel and even recruitment. There are, however, still very few advertisers who have ventured into this segment. We at Maxus are therefore really excited that BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany has launched this project together with us.”

The campaign is focused on a sophisticated gamer target group who, with this innovative ad format, are given the brand new opportunity to deep dive into the dark world of outstanding games such as Dark Souls. In addition to the obvious affinity to gaming, the collaboration is made even more exciting by the fact that globally, it is the very first case of standardising 360° locations for brands as advertising media and successively joining the virtual reality network (The Mesh). “Our approach is, to make brands accessible to the public as early as possible in the growing market of virtual reality. The ad formats should be individual but also standardised to ad formats adjusted to VR.” Jan Schlüter, CMO of Hashplay told us. “We are really happy that BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany as well as Maxus, their media agency, are taking the exciting first steps into the world of VR advertising to gather experience for future campaigns.“

“We are always looking for new and innovative approaches which, on the one hand, underline the entertainment aspect of our products and, on the other, are more focused on reaching our relevant target groups”, Frieder Bartussek, Marketing Director GSA of BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany told us. “With its VR concept, Hashplay not only fits this idea exactly, but enters new advertising territory and is in this regard totally ahead of the curve.”

In the near future, brands will be able to place their 360° locations (as ad or brand presentation) as QR code or link (banner, clip or 3D model) in classic mobile distribution channels as an integral part of the media mix. With a click, the VR network is entered. The Google Cardboard is the easiest way to enter and experience the VR world. Hashplay’s technology offers the production, hosting and distribution on its own platform.

The game Dark Souls III was launched on April 12, 2016 and has already become one of BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment’s most successful games.

About Hashplay:

Founded in 2015 by Jan-Philipp Mohr (CEO), Ingo Nadler (CTO) and Jan Schlüter (CMO), Hashplay provides the infrastructure and individual 360° locations for live streaming, gaming, sharing and watching in virtual reality. Hashplay is based in San Francisco, CA. www.hashplay.net

About Maxus:

Maxus Communications in Düsseldorf, part of the largest global media investment company GroupM, was founded in 2008. As a global network agency with 70 offices and over 2,700 staff, Maxus Communications provides an international network and customised communication services to a wealth of local and global clients such as FCA, GSK, Barclays und UPS. With its mission “Leading Change”, Maxus is a strategic business partner in the transformation process of fragmented media markets and helps its clients to embrace the change proactively and strategically. Managing Director is Christian Leipacher. www.maxusglobal.de

About BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany GmbH

BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Germany GmbH is part of BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Inc. and one of the leading publishers and developers of interactive content for all platforms, including all game consoles, PCs and mobiles. The company is renowned for creating and publishing many of the top franchises in the video games industry including PAC-MAN®, TEKKEN®, SOULCALIBUR®, NARUTO™, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN™, Dragon Ball®, GALAGA®, RIDGE RACER® and ACE COMBAT®. You can find out more at www.bandainamcoent.eu.

Claudius Körber
Manager Marketing
Maxus Communications GmbH
Derendorfer Allee 4
40477 Düsseldorf
Mail: claudius.koerber@maxusglobal.com
Office: +49 211 9387 - 7379
Fax: +49 211 9387 - 7305

This release was published on openPR.