India’s largest vernacular gaming platform, WinZO, has launched a new brand campaign to highlight the social gaming capabilities of its app. Titled ‘Khiladi ho? Khiladi chahiye?’ (Are you a game player? Do you need an opponent?), the campaign began during the current season of IPL 2023.
MS Dhoni is the brand ambassador for WinZO and is a part of all TV campaigns.
The campaign is a humorous take on how people in India want to play games against a worthy opponent but frequently cannot find one. With this campaign, WinZO makes the proposition: ‘Khiladi Ho? Khiladi Chahiye? To Aao WinZO par &Khelo 10 KarodKhiladiyonke Saath’ (Are you a game player? Do you require an opponent? Come to WinZO and play with over 10 crore game players).
WinZO aims to raise awareness about its unique offering of providing access to over 10 crore users for gameplay. Users can select from over 100 real-time games in genres such as fantasy, arcade, racing, casual, sports, board games, and action games.
WinZO debuted two films during the first match of IPL and plans to expand the campaign to include multiple films.
Paavan Nanda, WinZO’s co-founder, stated, “Online gaming is a more interactive or active form of entertainment than traditional forms of entertainment. Consumers grew accustomed to virtual social interactive modes of entertainment during COVID. Games act as the most potent boilerplate activity among people. WinZO has over 10 crore users and offers the largest player liquidity pool across 100+ games. There is a strong algo-based skill matching system in place to ensure that users are paired with people who have similar skills. We want to invite audiences to come on the platform and experience incredibly engaging and social gameplay with this ad campaign.”
Cellar Door Production, a Gurgaon-based boutique video production house, conceptualised, shot and edited the ad.
The new campaign will be boosted by a 360-degree approach that includes a soon-to-be released TVC, digital, outdoor and social activations to reach its target, which predominantly consists of tier II and beyond audiences with limited entertainment options.
“We’ve built ultra-low latency gaming servers and infrastructure, capable of high-class performance in low-end devices and variable low-speed internet connectivity, both of which are common in Tier II and beyond. Our platform is available in 12 languages and the games on the app are tailored to the local context. The ad campaign is aimed at these audiences to raise awareness about the availability of a large pool of gamers,” said Nanda.
Last year, WinZO had launched an ad campaign themed “Game Badal Do”. The campaign intended to inspire the users to fuel their passion to the next level to unlock their true potential and achieve success.
WinZO was founded in 2018 by Zostel co-founder Paavan Nanda and Zostel core team member Saumya Singh Rathore. The New-Delhi-based firm has raised over $100 million from Griffin Gaming Partners, Maker’s Fund, Courtside Ventures, and Kalaari Capital, among others. It has already given an exit to Hike, one of its early investors.