Amazon Ads is launching a new experience on gaming platform “Fortnite” that will offer marketing opportunities to brands and have guaranteed promotion through Amazon-owned streamer Twitch.
Titled “The Glitch,” the project is described as “an integrated galaxy of brand-customized playable worlds” within “Fortnite” created by “Halo” co-creator Alexander Seropian and his Look North World game developer.
The new venture will be formally announced out of TwitchCon San Diego on Friday, where collaborations with inaugural brand partners Domino’s and Peloton will be revealed.
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Per Amazon Ads, “Twitch and the Look North World teams have deliberately baked in player-brand interaction at every corner; for example, players can come across a fully-modeled Domino’s pizzeria. By engaging in a ‘pizza party,’ their health will be fully restored – allowing them to get back into the action and giving a powerful connection to the brand’s product.”
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With “The Glitch,” Amazon Ads is attempting to crack the complexities of in-game advertising that is as nonintrusive to players as possible, while offering brands access to this primarily Gen Z audience.
“When we created ‘The Glitch,’ the number one priority we had was to make it a strong core game that people will actually play, stream, share, and then have longevity,” Amazon Ad’s head of brand partnership studio Andrea Garabedian told Variety. “So we partnered with Alex Seropian, who is the founder of a ‘Fortnite’-focused game studio, Look North World, and he is also the co-creator of the ‘Halo’ franchise and the co-founder of Bungie. And so within that, you can tell that we’ve taken the time to really make sure we partner with an actual game developer and studio because we want to make sure that streamers want to stream it, want to play it, and want to keep coming back.”
Where Twitch comes into the equation with this Fortnite game is that Amazon Ads is partnering with some popular Twitch streamers to make sure they are playing and live-streaming “The Glitch” when the game launches on Friday, and continuously moving forward, even when there might not be a new branded world to promote in the game.
“What we are aiming to do is offer players a diverse selection of gaming experiences within ‘The Glitch,’ both the primary game and the fully customizable and connected branded worlds that will be part of that,” Garabedian said, noting a “strong gameplay loop” strategy focused on streamers that “will want to play it, they’ll stream it on Twitch, and people will also want to watch it.”
