Corporate marketing campaigns invading popular media have been a thing for longer than one will remember.
Even before the advent of internet these adverts were creeping into your favorite films and television, and sometimes going as far as to appear as console video games to get younger audiences to try out the products.
In the following list, we will be taking a look at some of the advert games that were used for marketing popular brands and their products.
Top games that were a part of viral marketing
Pepsiman
Long before the advent of endless runners like Subway Surfers and Temple Run, there were console games that dominated the genre. Inspired by PlayStation titles like Crash Bandicoot, in March of 1999 the Japanese developer KID released Pepsiman.
Pepsiman was originally a character created by the Japanese branch of the Pepsi company. He had a made-up back story which followed a scientist who turned into the titular superhero after coming into contact with ‘Holy Pepsi’.
The campaign was heavily successful in Japan, which led to the development of this low-budget promotional video game.
The gameplay, like any other endless runner, follows the titular superhero running through a bunch of stages based on real-life cities, handing over Pepsi to dehydrated people.
The game was unfortunately never localized outside Japan, but it still has a cult fan following universally to this day.
M&M’s The Lost Formulas
The late 90s were an era that saw the rise of console gaming hence, brand-based video games were quickly becoming a thing. One of the most popular brands to jump into this trend back in the day was the M&M’s.
Founded in 1941 by Mars Inc., this colorful and flavor-varied candy has been one of the most popular commercial brands in the world even to this day.
M&M’s has appeared in countless media as a part of viral marketing campaigns. That includes video games, ranging from 3D platforms to Kart Racers. The first one of them being M&M’s The Lost Formulas release for the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.
The gameplay followed the same format as Crash Bandicoot games, and had players move through levels. It was also partly an edutainment game, as it consisted of levels where players had to solve maths questions.
Even though M&M’s is still releasing video games for marketing, the recent one was released for mobile devices. M&M’s The Lost Formals remains the best game to date, according to critics. It even got a console release titled M&M’s: Shell Shocked.
Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool
Brand mascots can sometimes get too popular, surpassing the product itself. So much so that sometimes just looking at their silhouette would immediately remind anyone of the product. One such mascot is Chester Cheetah, the face of Cheetos.
Founded in 1948 under the PepsiCo. Subsidiary, Cheetos is one of the most popular corn cheese-puff snack brands in the world. Their mascot, Chester Cheetah, was created by artist Brad Morgan, appearing in various commercials from the late 1980s to the 2000s.
Naturally following up with the trend of popular brands marketing their products using video games, Chester Cheetah made the jump into the world of consoles back in 1992 with the first game titled Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool.
The game was released for North America only. Developed by the Japanese studio Kaneko for the SEGA Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment Systems. It was a fun little side scroller with a bit of platforming to avoid obstacles and squashing enemies.
A follow-up game by the same developer was released in 1994, Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest, which had much more fleshed out level designs, animations.
Cool Spot
Newer readers won’t remember this one, but the Soft Drink brand 7up had a mascot that was used for various marketing campaigns prior to the 90s. We aren’t talking about Fido Dido, the mascot character that everyone associates with 7up these days.
Before the brand design overhaul, the red dot in 7up’s brand logo was a fully realized character named Spot, who was a mascot for the brand. Spot was mostly used in marketing for the soft drink in the US, appearing in several commercials, including video games.
The most popular advert game in which Spot appeared was titled Cool Spot, released in 1993 for the consoles and also MS-DOS. It was a platformer that had Spot running around, shooting bubbles at enemies.
There were also other video games over the years that were based around Spot as a marketing campaign for the soft drink. But Cool Spot is still the one that everyone notoriously remembers the most.
Yo! Noid
Capcom, in 1990 published a side-scrolling platformer titled Kamen No Ninja Hanamaru for the Famicom system. In an interesting turn of events, the game was overhauled into an advert game for Domino’s Pizza and released in the West in November, the same year.
Believe it or not, even Domino’s Pizza had a mascot in the US named The Noid, and has only recently stopped appearing in marketing materials. The character was created in the 1980s, donning a red body suit with rabbit ears and a big N on his chest.
Noid’s role in the marketing materials was making light of the hassle and difficulties behind delivering a Domino’s Pizza within 30 minutes.
The character grew popular enough to warrant a video game to go with marketing campaigns, but little did fans back then know it was originally an overhauled game.
Story of Yo! Noid followed the titular character defending New York City from a green doppleganger named Mr. Green, who has let loose a bunch of obstacles for him to overcome, with the reward of a massive Domino’s Pizza waiting for him.
The game had a fan following, enough to get a fan-made sequel titled Yo! Noid 2: Enter the Void, developed by a group of people for a game jam. It was released as a freeware game online.
Sneak King
One of the most popular mascots among fast food brands has to be The King from Burger King. The character has been around marketing materials for the brand since the mid-1950s, and is probably one of the few brand mascots that is still used in adverts.
Burger King has released a bunch of different types of video games as part of viral marketing campaigns over the years. But the most popular one among them has to be Sneak King with over 2 million downloads, making it probably one of the most successful advert games ever.
The game was released for Xbox systems, developed by Blitz Games. You play as The King sneaking around while delivering burger meals, kind of like Santa Claus, but for hungry people.
With multiple levels to choose from, and each having several maps to play on, the game’s success actually helped the developers at Blitz Games receive a financial boost enough to fund Blitz Arcade.
Grimace’s Birthday
One of the most recent advert games that followed up with a viral meme trend for marketing purposes was the browser-based Gameboy-looking platformer, Grimace’s Birthday, released in 2023 and developed by Krool.
The game went along with the viral promotional for McDonald’s new Gtimace Shake launch. The game followed the titular character’s platforming through the game’s levels on a skateboard. He also uses a power-up bubble that allows him to float across obstacles.
The game’s plot followed Grimace preparing to celebrate his birthday at McDonald’s, but his friends are missing and now he must find them before midnight.
One interesting trivia about the game was that it was developed using GB Studio, which made the game fully compatible with Game Boy hardware. Even though it was released as a browser game, fans could download a ROM version of the game and pop it into a Gameboy Color to play it using flash cards.
Several reviews hailed the game as a throwback game of the bygone advert era, and even praised it as a fairly solid platformer for a flashy marketing campaign.
