Gamification as an Aesthetic Trend in Communication of Russian Brands

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issues of communication of brands with the audience and identifies the trends in technologies for creating communication messages. The empirical data is received based on the review of 71 advertising projects – winners of ADCR Awards 2023 – Russian professional competition in the field of creativity, design, and advertising, established in 2004. Of these, 26 communication solutions are labeled as created on the basis of gamification – an approach characteristic of computer games used in software tools and non-game content to attract audiences and increase their involvement. The author makes an attempt to classify gamified solutions based on technological solutions in order to identify the main trends in the organization of communication messages in the advertising industry. The review showed that advertising practitioners are adopting different techniques: AR technology, MR reality technology, modeling a special event as a format for creating a viral environment, and the active introduction of artificial intelligence into advertising practice. It is concluded that gamification techniques are aimed at generating creative solutions that are similar in values to target audiences of brands.