1076: G2A Gaming E-Commerce Platform: Marketing Strategies for Digital Marketplaces with CMO Mona Kinal

Robert Plank 0:04 This is the marketer of the day podcast Mona key now is here and she is the CMO of G to A, which is the world's largest global marketplace for digital entertainment in the form of games, gift cards and software. Mona is a superstar global brand expert. She has served as the Head of Communications for Central Europe at Discovery Networks. And she has so much to say about the 20 year evolution of digital entertainment and the way we market it about web three RANS how to pivot yours, global brand unity, localization and all these exciting topics. So Mona, glad to be speaking with you.

Mona Kinal 0:40 Oh, wow. Thanks. That was quite an intro. Actually. Robert, lovely meeting you. And thanks for having me. Hello, everyone. And I'm truly happy to be here. And hopefully, I will have a lot of interesting things to say and no one is going to be born. Okay, well,

Robert Plank 0:58 good, good. Let's get to some some excitement. And I love your energy so far. And so we introduced you, but what are you all about what defines you what makes you unique?

Speaker 1 1:07 Me, personally, just let me start my day with it. It's always good to know who you're actually listening to. So basically, I'm a passionate brand strategist, and a very results driven marketing professional. I like to say that I'm also a Democratic leader. That's the way how I actually lead my teams that has usually been quite a big teams, and usually very diverse and internationally spread. And I'm also a creative storyteller. With more than 20 years experience, as you said, across ecommerce, retail, sports, fashion, TV, media and entertainment industry. And if we talk about my current place that I've been really lucky to be working at, which is due to a.com. We are, as you said, the world's largest and most trusted, which is very important marketplace for digital entertainment. With more than 30 million people from 180 countries who have asked for tests so far over 100 million items, they can choose, as you mentioned, from variety of products, more than 75,000 digital offerings, including gaming games, DLCs in game items, as well as non gaming, which is like gift cards, subscriptions software, or elearning. Sold by quality verified sellers from all over the world. Only last year, we had over 2 million visits on gta.com. And when we come when we talk about the brands, which I really want to stress, G to a.com stands for gate to adventure. So we are the gate to adventure in digital entertainment. When you use this brand archetype methodology, we act as the Explorer and the caregiver at the same time, which makes us this very secure, very credible place. So basically, as the Explorer GTI, inspires, recommends, to all help if you like to discover what's best in digital entertainment, or what's worth paying attention to. And while acting as the caregiver, we create this safe environment for everyone in digital world, we make this process of purchasing digital goods. Safe, very easy, but also we make it accessible for everyone, despite location, age, gender, or height, how digital savvy one may be. So basically, in one sentence, we democratize digital entertainment for everyone offering best digital adventures at your fingertips. How cool is that?

Robert Plank 3:51 It is very cool. I love how the brand is very thought through, right? It's not just you could say, oh, we're just some gaming marketplace. And you say no, we're so much more. And here's what our attitude is. And here's what we're all about. And here's what you can accomplish with us. And so what do you think is the secret to your success? You mentioned all these fantastic, huge numbers. And there are so many companies out there that that wants to have a marketplace or they put in the time to set something up. But as you know, they're setting up and they're is getting people to use it and continuing to use it and coming back. So what are you doing right? And how did you grow this to become so huge? It is

Speaker 1 4:30 actually I would compare it to also being a great chef, you know, it's a combination of different factors that assess users to make his dish super delicious standing out and basically needed very demanded. So it's very similar with any business pretty much. So for us, it's a combination first of all of this great well tailored quality offering, then it's a combination of very good brand strategy, and also a very well executed and a very well designed profile communication. We are here to serve our clients and also technology Sorry, I just need to say because our Head of Product chief product officer will be probably satisfied on. So yes, it's also a great platform, a great application, all those channels that basically we've been communicating with our customers through and communication was we'll make marketing wise, if you like, we are here to serve our clients, that's a very customer centric approach that we want to add value. So we use very diverse communication channels, fitting those targets, very diverse target groups, or client segments, if you like, then I would say that the recipe for success sits with this complex task of this good definition of your customers. And then very well profiled manner of responding to the needs. So basically, we used to be, for example, recently, all about gaming. But in 2023, we announced our enhanced strategy and opened up as a business for a broader, more mainstream audiences seeing a lot of potential there with a new range of offerings outside of gaming. So we also had to take a very different marketing approach than before. So now we follow more than ever, this 360 marketing approach, depending on what works for this given audiences, or in the given markets, what's worked best, following those local specifics, we use both traditional but also very non standard channels. Because we always want to stay relevant just again, to give this value to the customer. So I would say that, if you are smart enough to connect all the dots, and you are first to do it, and you are first to innovate, and to propose something new, you're gonna win. And then just to give you some examples of how we do it, we use of course, heavily social media, right? We do. Very precise and very nice dedicated content on tick tock wealth generation that sits we use partnership with content creators of different kinds. But we have just finished this super creative argumented reality companion metric literally like few days ago. It's centered around preparing specialized argumented reality experience, by setting up a camera into the bus shelters, which captures the surrounding environment, by functioning as a mirror. And this reflection of this real space served as a state to incorporate the 3d content may take you lessly, designed to complement our advertising campaign. And I must tell you that the reception of this activation was just spectacular. But also the return on investment was very satisfactory. We also target kids, just to talking, you know, talking about these different diverse audiences. We also target kids through for example, due to a Academy project, realized in cooperation with profit source. So basically, we want to show value of gaming in education at the same time, also breaking stereotypes about gaming, and showing how to make it all right, in a balanced way. And this program already is highly used and valued by teachers internationally. We communicate also with sports funds, by for example, being present for last few months, with our branding at matches of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund so top clubs in the boondocks League, or last year, we have started this long term partnership with drift masters European Championship, the fastest growing driven entertainment. But we have always been also very active with esport. So basically, we have invested today, more than $12 million on eSports partnerships and events supporting her today that would be like 70 teams over 110 tournaments all over the world. And now our goal is to create those synergies between online and offline sports. So this is the challenge for us at the moment, but also a really truly very exciting, great adventure.

Robert Plank 9:38 I can tell that it is and you're having a lot of fun here. And so I'm kind of digesting a lot of these ideas that you have right because you're you're very eager to talk to to new people and kind of find new angles of your marketing and I like how what one thing in there was, you say you break stereotypes you think like what stereotypes do people Think about about your industry, about your company about gaming? And how do you break through and kind of get it into education. And there's something that you said early on there about how you said, Well, you think about who are your people, right? Who's your community? Who do you want to serve? And then what are they missing? What do they need? And that seems like it's a logical enough approach when you explain it, but a lot of companies are missing, that they're not really doing this deep recurring thinking, and saying, like, Okay, well, here's where we're at now. But here's also where we want to be, and who's who we want to speak to. And so, and you've done you do all this crazy, amazing stuff, right, dumping all this money into the eSports, partnerships, and like making all the other contacts. And as far as like the pain, the struggle and growing the company, where have there been challenges.

Speaker 1 10:50 I mean, we've been facing challenges pretty much all the time. For example, when it comes to security, being a digital business these days, is very old can be very difficult. So how to prevent your Cousteau customers from frauds, you know, from all this kind of difficult stuff. So you need all those systems that first can prevent that, you know, and basically give those alerts to us. And we make sure that it is all kind of top quality. So security is like top challenge, actually, proudly, we lead the way in here as well. And our industry, our fraud, right is absolutely below few times below the industry average. So we can truly say, and we say that we are most trusted, but also one of the most secure marketplaces, then another challenge would be okay, there is so much competition here, there are so many parties that really want to sell similar products than us. So how to stand out, then we say, content is the king. So we want to engage, we want to build this community, you know, we want to listen to people and basically give them what they need. And actually our strategy is based on those two pillars. One is this short term perspective pillar that sighs of course we need to sell. So we rely on digital campaigns or trade seasons, which are this kind of climatical campaigns, like back to school or the holiday season. So basically giving them this very well tailored offering responding to the seasonal needs as well. So driving category and product awarness, basically doing it and most credible, very detailed way, but also creative and standing out. But there is also a second pillar that we very heavily rely on is this longer term, longer term perspective investment in a brand awareness and communicating the value behind our brand, and actually this mission that we are on. So basically, here comes this gate to adventure approach and positioning as well, this gate ready communication platform that we launched last year, and continue to communicate across different markets. Currently, we are running campaign in Spain. We want to democratize this digital entertainment make it relevant for everybody, we want to also communicate that diversity is important. And last year, we launched our first diversity campaign, which underlines the positive aspects of gaming on various levels, basically, and also giving voice to female. Because we believe that still there is so much to be done within technology and gaming industry when it comes to female and women in the industry. So we try to do it, as I say in a short term, as well as more long term, longer term perspective, showing the value and basically trying to tell our customers that we are the brands that they should select, because for those different reasons, not just the great prices that we've got not only this great offering, but also because we have values that matter. I love it.

Robert Plank 14:18 And I'm just making a mental list of all of the reasons there are to continuously communicate, right? Because if you when we need to, right, we're in this world where we need to always be marketing and always have some kind of newsworthy event happening, like you mentioned these things like back to school or women in gaming. And if you without the way social media is if you're not posting all the time, or at least somewhat regularly, then you won't get noticed. And so there seems to definitely be that need to be just doing that constant thinking of what can I do to get attention what is the the current or upcoming events and then what is my message so that I need to maybe have sort of on repeat, but set in different ways, right? This gateway to adventure concept you have, if you just said, slept on the website once and never talked about it, no one would notice. But here you are on a podcast talking about it, and you post on the TIC TOCs, to reach young kids, and you do all those sorts of things. So that way, you get more awareness. And so as far as a G to a gateway to adventure, all these people use it. And is there something about it that you wish people notice more? Is there some aspect of the marketplace or their website that you would like to have more attention, I

Speaker 1 15:35 would say that our mission is to make our customers happy. And they can only be happy by experience. So basically come to our platform cow to our application, and just try it on. Just give us a chance and see whether everything that we tell you everything that we offer you is what resonates with you. So I would say that we've got it all. And now what we need is just the customer basically to come and see if it is resonating with with her or him and that's

Robert Plank 16:12 a good mindset to have is to be thinking about how can I make the path from someone being aware of my company to to using it? How can I make that shorter? How can I make it easier, and you think about all sorts of like software or SaaS products that have a free trial or like something that still blows me away was a few months ago, I went to some one of these AI tools, one of these websites, and it popped up a thing that saying like, hey, in one click you log in with Google you create an account with it's just like, right, like right there don't have to enter an email, just like right there on your face. And so that's interesting to think about is by having these goals and saying, Okay, we want people to use G to A want them to use our platform, once they start using it, they'll love it, they'll keep coming back. So so how can we get them to go there and to just, you know, get a little bit of a taste and get a little bit of usage. And so what's next? Are you doing all these amazing things, like you said, you open it up into this kind of this larger world, and you're talking to all sorts of people. So what is on the horizon, what's happening in the next six to 12 months?

Speaker 1 17:16 Actually, there is a lot actually that's coming up. And it is truly exciting for us working on it. But I believe that it is going to be also very exciting for our customers to see what's coming up. So basically, what I also want to say that we've been cooperating very much with content creators right on a long and short term basis. And now we are getting more and more and much more into the sports corporations as well. So probably you will see much more of that coming. So not just the gaming influencers or content creators creators if you like, but more of this sports, adventure driven, passionate, driven, supports women or sportsmen of all kinds actually coming up, we've been already cooperating just to name a few with such great names as Danny claws, which is former Formula One driver or Pavel Karpeles ski, which is a Polish and Swedish dream champion. But we also have an amazing Alexandra Murasa. She's a women's competitons peak climbing multi world record holder and going to the Olympic championships actually pretty soon. And that's exactly what we are gonna do, we will bring onboard more of this kind of amazing people who story is worth listening to who can act as role models, and actually many of them the game, because when you talk to the drivers, they kind of all say yeah, we started from Assetto Corsa or need for speed, and look where they are today. So we also want to act as this role model, especially for kids or for the teenagers and show them that there is great stuff out there. And that the combination of online and offline is a great thing to do. So we focus also more and more on this omni channel communication these days. And so yeah, more to come from us more of great content coming more of great partnerships because we are also very heavily working at the moment on brand partnerships of different kinds. We have just finished this very nice partnership with Dr. Atkore. In Poland, you know, when we had discount codes on the pizza, millions of pizza boxes in Poland, so it was really interesting to see you know, the outcome of the campaign. So definitely stay tuned because more of that is coming globally, basically on many different markets.

Robert Plank 19:55 You're working on so many things and it just it's great hearing about all of these partnerships that you're making, because it's, it's tempting to say, Oh, I'll have a website or run ads, people will find out. But you're saying that's not enough. I also need to see who are these Formula One racers who's who can I put on the pizza boxes? Who can I partner with, to help me get this unstoppable momentum. So that way I can can keep on getting the success I've had and have even more success. So what's the next step here? If someone is listening to our conversation, to hearing your story finding out about G to A, how can they use the platform and what's the call to action?

Speaker 1 20:34 Definitely. So I would say, just type D to a.com on your computer, or just on your mobile, or download our application, and just start and just get on this great adventure with us. Because what you said before is exactly how we want to democratize the digital entertainment. If we go on a cooperation with the pizza, and give access to some people via discount code, they can start on this adventure with us, maybe for the first time, maybe they can continue to grow or expand on the potential and expand on these skills, whether it's gaming, or business with software, or whatever other entertainment, gift cards, shopping, and so on. We are here to serve the clients. And we do it by all means using standard non standard channels. Just it's very accessible. So just go and check it out. And I hope you're gonna love it.

Robert Plank 21:34 I think they will G to a.com. So you can see what all of the excitement is about that we've been speaking about. And you can see about this as crazy, amazing marketplace where you can get access to all kinds of entertainment and gaming. And the place to go is G to a.com. And as we're wrapping up our conversation here, Mona, you've given us so many ideas. You told us so many cool stories. Do you have a favorite quote or lesson that can really help us out and really just put a put a nice tidy bow on our conversation?

Speaker 1 22:07 Yeah, definitely there is one that I've been kind of using and leaving especially at this company sky is no longer the limit,

Robert Plank 22:16 very inspiring, the sky is no longer the limit. And you can see what that's all about firsthand by going to g number two a.com. We've been speaking with Mona key now who was the former head of communications of Discovery Networks. But now she's on the path to world domination as the CMO, the Chief Marketing Officer of G to A the world's largest global marketplace for digital entertainment in the form of games, gift cards and software. Go there right now, G to a.com. And thank you very much Mona for stopping by and having a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 22:48 Thanks so much. It was lovely. And thanks for having such an insightful and thorough conversation. It was a true pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Robert Plank 22:59 Thank you for tuning in to the marketer of the day podcast. marketer of the day is managed by dF why podcast claim your 12 podcast boosters at Def Why podcast.com/free