Dive Brief:
- Jägermeister, the German brand of herbal liqueur, leaps onto the nostalgia trend with a web-based video game that follows the form of the popular 16-bit arcade fighting games of the 1990s, according to a press release.
- In Ice Cold Justice, players help the brand’s Stag mascot battle against “anti-fun bad guys” who attempt to impede on a night of sharing ice-cold Jägermeister shots with friends. Through leaderboard tracking, the brand will award weekly prizes to top scorers.
- The game was created to supplement the brand’s recent campaign, “Call of the Cold,” which highlighted the preferred method of consuming the liqueur: ice cold. The latest effort from Jägermeister arrives as it attempts to bounce back from a sales slump.
Dive Insight:
Brands have been tapping into nostalgia for some time as a way to grow loyalty with consumers, and throwback gaming has been a big part of the tactic. For instance, Chili’s last year nodded to the ‘80s arcade title BurgerTime with a game that featured a character attempting to assemble the components of the chain’s Big Smasher Burgers while fending off mascots from fictional counterparts.
Jägermeister’s Ice Cold Justice works in a similar vein, aping the old Street Fighter and other button-smashing arcade fighting games as a buffed-up Stag mascot takes on characters with names such as Sleepy Sal, The Wall, Swanky Pete, Jukebox Hog and Mr. Grump, all of whom want to subvert a player’s ability to have ice-cold Jägermeister shots with friends. Those on the top of the leaderboard each week will earn prizes including gaming consoles, a custom cornhole set and event tickets, per release details.
The Ice Cold Justice game is intended to be a way for fans to “step directly into the action” of Jägermeister’s “Call of the Cold” campaign, according to Jägermeister U.S. CMO Cindy Wang Simms. That effort included a comedic 30-second spot where the Stag mascot races to a bar to defend against warm Jägermeister shots. The latest activation could be part of the brand’s efforts to reconnect with consumers and shore up stronger business momentum. Jägermeister’s net sales declined 10% in 2024 in what the distiller called a “historically challenging market environment” that saw the global spirits market shrink for the second straight year.
The brand has experimented with mobile marketing as a way to connect with consumers before. In 2019, it launched a Halloween-themed promotion with location data provider Foursquare that enabled users to see “Darke Spirits” via augmented reality in and around bars serving Jägermeister. The marketer also ran a campaign on Snapchat in 2018 that enabled fans to click on virtual Tarot cards to reveal their “cocktail fate” and served as the title sponsor of the NHL’s YouTube series “Men in Blazers on Ice” in 2020.
