For quite a long, players in Pay-to-Play Gaming roped male entertainers as their brand ambassadors like Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Shahrukh Khan and so on who have been featured on different platforms.

Thus, the segment has been ruled by males for a long while now

Nonetheless, a fascinating way to deal with the Pay-to-Play Gaming section was brought in by Khelraja, who in December 2022 had reported Esha Gupta as their brand representative. In another example, an online rummy gaming platform A23, which has Shahrukh Khan as its brand representative had released its new series of ad films under its ‘‘Chalo Saath Khelein’ campaign starring actor Rakul Preet Singh and digital creator- Niharika Naga Malneedi.

According to A23, the new ad film shows Rakul Preet Singh and different players partaking in a round of darts, each with their novel style of play and Rakul Preet Singh proceeds to discuss how players can browse various Rummy formats on the A23 Rummy application, the most ideal to their skill set.

Nisha Sampath, Brand Consultant and Managing Partner, Bright Angles Consulting, expressed that the reasoning behind the Pay-to-Play gaming players are roping female celeb for their promotion is because of the trend of how the number of female gamers is increasing.

“While this would mostly be smartphone games, they may sense the opportunity for women to start playing for money as well. It’s a smart business move by the brand, in a category that is still traditionally male-dominated,” she added.

As per the Interactive Media Venture Capital Fund report on gaming in 2022, the number of female gamers in India was viewed as on the ascent with a 60:40 Male: female proportion.

“I think the brand has used her as an endorser simply to invite women to the platform. A woman endorser in a traditionally male-endorsed category will also get a good cut through for the brand, even with the male audiences,” she opined.

Likewise, Lakshmipathy Bhat, SVP – Global Marketing and Communications, Robosoft Technologies, as well expressed that although he honestly does not like celebrity advertising, the decision of big name, for this situation, assists the brand to be different with regards to other Pay-to-Play gaming advertisements which generally cast male actors.

“I don’t follow the category closely and would be hard-pressed to recollect which celebrity is associated with which brand. So, there was perhaps an opportunity to cast the protagonist as a character and not just as a talking head,” he said.
“The ‘play together’ and ‘play responsibly’ messages seem like a balancing act. I think this coming from a woman celebrity scores a better chance of getting through inclusive messaging,” he added.

According to Shubho Sengupta, Director, Media and Creative, MyGov India, the sad thing is such an extent that even making up more than half of the populace, it has forever been a male-ruled society and breaking liberated from the man-centric structures will take some time.

“Any ad campaign, anywhere will be a male-dominated one, and this time A23’s move of featuring a female celebrity was the right move because female gamers are growing rapidly and the growth rate is very fast. Therefore, as a responsible marketing manager, I would try and get a warmer name and this has been done across categories and I would rather see it as a sensible marketing move rather than an elephant in the room,” he added.

Shubho Sengupta likewise proceeded to add that there are sure essential objectives which come from data and explicitly in the gaming class, the number of female gamers is on a gradual increment and that too on a fast premise, hence in his perspective, it’s an undeniable move to feature Rakul Preet Singh in the brand ads as the brand’s target group matches with her crowd for this situation.

Even with this, she additionally added that it is not necessarily the case that women won’t take on gaming for a monetary amount. “Their style and spending pattern may differ from men. Either way, it’s a worthy endeavour to invite them to play pay-to-play games, because only then can the platforms can learn more about them, and build better products that appeal to them,” she believed.

Dissimilar to Nisha Sampath, Shubho Sengupta doesn’t have faith in the idea that women are more aware of spending money and focusing on details when contrasted with men.

In his view, since there are worldwide games also which are intended for females by females and India is one of the worldwide economies, it will undoubtedly occur sooner or later as the traditional classes have previously featured females in the centre phase of their promotion campaigns for quite a long time.

“Therefore, it’s only logical that gaming also follows the same trends as the traditional and new age brands are doing in terms of their ad campaign which showcase women in the centre,” he added.

Credit: Best Media Info