‘This is an Xbox’ campaign explained

There’s a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt circling Xbox’s new ad campaign. And I can understand why. It’s extremely disruptive. But guess what… that’s the point. 

I work in advertising for a living, I have six years in the field and, in this article, I’m going to tell you why Xbox’s new ad campaign is almost perfect. Sit back – ‘This is an Xbox’ campaign explained.

Xbox has a marketing problem

It isn’t considered part of the cultural zeitgeist of casual gaming when compared to platforms like the PlayStation or the Switch, both of which have a far more ubiquitous presence in the public consciousness outside of the United States.

Younger audiences are growing up gaming on phones and tablets – which to those of us that grew up on consoles or PC, sounds like a living nightmare. Not to mention horrific for your posture, by the way.

Console generation after console generation, Microsoft has seen a dip in its hardware sales numbers. There are a number of reasons for this, some users grow out of the hobby, others move onto PC, which is becoming the increasingly desired sector.

Those that use the Xbox ecosystem, it’s online services, cloud saves, cloud gaming, game pass, et cetera – we all know it’s great. To quote Todd Howard: “It just works.” 

Xbox is the smallest of the three console platforms so it’s understandable why public awareness around Xbox’s offering, both as a platform ecosystem and games publisher, isn’t where Microsoft would like it to be. The problem here is that it’s a fairly complicated sell if you don’t have an Xbox console. 

Microsoft’s pivot into the cloud gaming space, and its controversial “no console required” initiative was the tech giant’s attempt at removing a significant barrier of entry (the upfront cost of console hardware) by leveraging cloud gaming technology and a massive library of titles on Xbox Game Pass.

The Fundamental Challenge

This brings us to the fundamental marketing challenge Microsoft has – The product knowledge around Xbox and Game Pass just isn’t there. 

Microsoft has been clinging on for dear life to a tagline that simply reads “Day One on Game Pass” – which means absolutely nothing to people who don’t know what Game Pass is.

Enter: “This is an Xbox.” A bold approach designed to help introduce people with only a rudimentary understanding of the Xbox brand, to the Game Pass offering in full. For those in the know, Game Pass is basically just Netflix but it’s video games. 

That’s not a line Xbox can run with without several legal challenges, and Game Pass isn’t the household name Microsoft would like it to be. When we think about brands like Netflix, Amazon and Google, these brands carry weight and recognition with such universality across households. So much so that most smart TV remotes come with a Netflix button. 

Amazon is the default method of buying shit you don’t need, and Google is now a commonplace verb for “looking stuff up on the internet.” These consumer behaviours are habitual for us by design, because these brands fit into our everyday lives.

Xbox needs to show, not tell

Microsoft wants to put Game Pass into the same sphere of public consciousness and become the place users turn to when they just want to play a game on-demand; on a screen that suits them. None of this is new, by the way – cloud gaming with Xbox has been a thing since 2019.

Game Pass itself if a really easy sell – it’s £15 a month, or $20 American for hundreds of games that you can play wherever you want. I told my creative team at work about this once and they were genuinely shocked that they hadn’t heard about it. 

Historically it feels as though Xbox has kind of just assumed Game Pass carries the same weight as a service offering like Netflix. But as I’ve pointed out, end lines like “Day One on Game Pass” or “Play it now on console, cloud and PC” don’t mean anything if you don’t know what Game Pass is. This strategy just wasn’t working, so the offering needed to be distilled into something incredibly simple.

Xbox’s new ad campaign is disruptive by design. It sends its target audience (those who currently don’t play on Xbox in any way, shape or form) on a journey of discovery – and you shouldn’t underestimate how empowering this can be for a consumer. 

Picture this. You see an ad on your phone that tells you for the first time, in no uncertain terms… 

You, yes… YOU can play Call Of Duty on this. Me. The thing in your hand. Now.

If that gets you hyped, you’re gonna click that CTA (Call To Action, or industry-speak for the ‘find out more button’) to find out how.

Smart TVs, Fire TV Sticks, Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, PC Rigs and of course, Xbox consoles are all portals into a huge library of games available via download or cloud streaming. All of it is possible because of Game Pass. This ad sends its target audience on a journey of discovery so that they can find out all about it for themselves.

This is how Microsoft can show the value of Game Pass, without overcomplicating the messaging.

For too long Xbox has relied on the presumption that its target audience has a basic understanding of Xbox product knowledge – which when you say it out loud, sounds pretty ridiculous, right? This ad takes it back to basics.

Why the campaign works

Microsoft’s “This is an Xbox” campaign is being rolled out heavily across several major cities in the United States, Australia, Europe and of course, a heavy digital presence globally via social media and targeted advertising.

Playful additions to the campaign delivery like a bento box, a cat box, an eggs box or a pair of Crocs (we should probably stop there before we end up in the middle of a Dr Seuss poem) are simple linguistic devices that help this campaign become more memorable across social and out-of-home settings.

For the audience that does engage with the campaign and wants to delve deeper to find out more, there’s even a quiz online that lets users test their understanding of the Xbox platform offering.

It’s a really valuable knowledge building tool – as every answer to the quiz explains the differences between Xbox Series S and Xbox consoles, as well as what’s possible via Game Pass on Cloud and PC.

I’d recommend checking this out, by the way. There’s a really fun tone-of-voice to it, and it serves as a valuable educational tool for people new to the Xbox brand. 

You can try that out here: https://www.xbox.com/what-is-xbox

There’s a “Meet Xbox” section that shows up at the end of this quiz lets a user go even deeper here, highlighting to a user everything they need to get started with Xbox and Game Pass.

If Microsoft’s messaging problem is the sickness, landing an ad like this is the remedy. All of this helps with building and strengthening a relationship with a brand – which cements a customer’s perception of its value. It helps build mental availability, which is fundamental for long term growth. 

Mental availability refers to the extent to which a brand occupies space in consumers’ minds, influencing their purchasing decisions. With that definition in mind, let’s think about how that relates to Xbox’s new ad campaign:

By increasing Xbox’s mental availability… By showing people that they can access Xbox games on stuff that traditionally has been called a phone, or a laptop, an iPad or an Amazon Fire TV Stick; Xbox is helping users see more value in their Game Pass subscription, as well as the devices they already use every day.

I saw a lot of complaints on Twitter about this ad diluting the brand. But this just isn’t true. In fact, increasing Xbox’s mental availability does the complete opposite. It strengthens it significantly. 

What Xbox is hoping for as an outcome

Microsoft is hoping this new campaign strikes a chord with gamers that are open to trying things like cloud streaming and portable gaming. It’s looking at those users who are invested in PlayStation and Nintendo hardware, but have a keen interest in the exclusive titles that Xbox offers. 

Cloud gaming offers a way into the Xbox platform without the upfront hardware cost – which, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, is a really important factor here.

Big Holiday titles like Call Of Duty and Indiana Jones are the incentives, but the massive library of games is what Xbox is hoping will keep players there. That first step, getting someone through the door, is always the hardest. The challenge is getting someone to sign up once. 

Keeping them there, once they’ve discovered a vast curation of games designed to appeal to an extremely diverse audience, is actually the easy bit.

The variety and convenience that Game Pass offers might even push users into buying a console so that they can experience this content natively rather than exclusively via Cloud streaming. By re-introducing the Xbox brand and Cloud offering across devices in such a bold and disruptive way, Microsoft is hoping that this helps boost growth across Cloud, Console and PC users.

Microsoft is reframing the product offering in a way that speaks to a younger audience – a demographic more inclined to play across multiple devices, rather than pledging loyalty to any one method of play like the console traditionalists most upset by this new marketing approach.

I’m sorry guys, it’s not that you don’t matter – you’re just no longer the only demographic that matters.

That’s a really important distinction, by the way.

Console hardware isn’t under threat, it’s just not the only method of play that Microsoft is interested in.

That isn’t to say it doesn’t matter anymore, like some of the more hysterical voices online might try and claim – it just means that Microsoft wants to broaden the net with which it can encourage new players into its ecosystem.

Why it’s not perfect (yet)

Xbox’s new ad is brilliant, but it’s not quite perfect. There are a lot of stipulations, conditions and caveats that come with the claim that every screen you own is an Xbox, and the terms and conditions in this ad are doing A LOT of heavy lifting.

It’s not possible to download games to every device, or buy games on every device. It’s not possible to play Xbox games on every smart tv without the assistance of some additional hardware like a Fire TV Stick. Even then, the Xbox app is only available on specific Fire Stick models. And then there’s the common complaint about the Xbox experience on PC not being up to scratch.

It’s not possible to play every game that you own on every device – yet. But in a surprising move last month, Xbox actually made significant strides in this particular direction by enabling Cloud Gaming for a list of 50 games that aren’t a part of the Game Pass library – including what is possibly my favourite game of all time, Baldur’s Gate 3.

This is the first step of many, as the expectation is for Xbox to continue adding titles that Xbox players own digitally. The hope for the future is that at some point all games owned on Xbox can be played on any device via Cloud. It’s a massive ambition, but the implications for gamers are incredibly exciting.

Any game you own, playable on any screen, anywhere, providing you’ve got good internet.

With that in mind, it feels like this ad is trying to run before it can walk – but it’s a strong start that is going to deliver big titles via Game Pass to the masses, which is really the greater good in the eyes of Microsoft here.

I can’t recommend Game Pass Ultimate enough to anyone with or without an Xbox console, but you get so much more for your money by having a foot in the door with Xbox hardware. Currently that’s still the only place where you can buy and play every game for Xbox with no strings attached.

I do think Microsoft is missing a trick here by not offering a Cloud-only subscription at a lower cost, but in fairness, Cloud gaming infrastructure is not cheap to run.

And if people are happy to buy into Game Pass ultimate without the hardware platform, that’s a loss-leading console unit that Microsoft doesn’t need to supply. It’s an easy win for Microsoft, and the consumer gets the service that they’re paying for, despite it being sub-optimal when compared to going all-in by buying the hardware and having access to a game library that can be played natively, as well as via Cloud streaming.

Microsoft doesn’t care how you play, it just wants your money.

There’s a huge fear among the hardcore Xbox fanbase that Microsoft will eventually give up on making console hardware, but Xbox is truly in the strongest position its ever been – and console hardware remains the easiest and best way to step into the Xbox ecosystem.

There is so much going for it right now and it has a first-party games lineup for the ages. The future of Xbox looks incredibly exciting, and I’m so ready for it.