Why brands are turning to video games for creative inspiration

When crafting Coinbase’s 60-second ad for last month’s Academy Awards, the team behind it looked back. Approximately 26 years back.

The ad follows a non-player character (NPC) in a video game world where he realizes he’s a cog in a machine and, ultimately, decides to break out and enter the human world—a retro metaphor for the modern idea of finding financial freedom through cryptocurrency. The spot, created by Coinbase’s in-house creative team and ad agency Isle of Any, used early PlayStation games and The Sims, which was first released in 2000, as its primary reference points, according to Gareth Kay, VP of brand at Coinbase.

“The best advertising, I’ve always believed, is all about making people feel something,” Kay told Marketing Brew. “It’s not so much about what the actual words are or the message. It’s giving you that feeling. And it just struck us as a really powerful metaphor for what we were trying to communicate.”

Coinbase isn’t the only brand to adopt old-school video game aesthetics in advertising. Protein brand Met-Rx recently tapped John Cena for a 60-second spot that looks like it’s straight out of a ’90s Nintendo game in which the brand’s protein bars are depicted as a way to “level up.” Skittles, meanwhile, adopted a similarly retro look for social spots that promoted a branded video game flute controller that the brand sent to gamers to use while livestreaming. Last fall, Jack in the Box created the video game Deal Quest: Revenge of the Munchies, complete with a pixelated Jack Box mascot, as a way for fans of the brand to get new deals. (The aesthetic choice has even made it to the White House social team, which has used the Wii and a hodgepodge of other video game aesthetics in videos promoting the war in Iran.)

Brands borrowing video game aesthetics isn’t a brand-new phenomenon; back in 2006, a Coca-Cola spot imagined a gritty, violent world reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto that transforms into a utopia when the hero drinks a Coke. But the continued growth of the gaming community, the perpetual appeal of nostalgia, and the likelihood that those behind the spots were once (or still are) gamers themselves could be why some brands are adopting the look and feel of vintage video games.

“Even if you aren’t active in the gaming world now, chances are you still have nostalgia and love for Nintendo days,” said Brian Culp, group creative director at TBWA\Chiat\Day Chicago, which worked with Skittles on its gaming-flute activation. “It can be a fun new visual storytelling language that is unique.”

Gamer growth

With more than 3.4 billion gamers worldwide and time spent playing up 6% YoY, per data from a 2025 Dentsu Gaming report, reflecting those aesthetics certainly has mass appeal, one that is often left untapped in other arenas; the same report found that less than 5% of global media investment is spent on gaming.

At the same time, the creative teams and marketers at brands today may have grown up gaming themselves, making it easier for ideas to get through. While gaming has “been the domain of younger people,” there’s also “a lot of gamers in their 30s, 40s, and 50s,” Michael Highland, creative director at Buck Games, a gaming division of the creative agency Buck, said.

How many, exactly? Emarketer puts those 65 and older as a “growing segment” in gaming, with 44% already considering themselves to be gamers, while 63% of 35–44-year-olds, and nearly three-quarters of 25- to 34-year-olds and 12- to 17-year-olds say the same.

That means the look of video games might be widely attractive to a wide range of audiences, although it could have particular appeal among younger consumer sets. Gaming often serves as a “third space” for younger people, Highland noted, adding that “anywhere companies and brands are seeing people gathering and having meaning-making in any way, they want to be part of that and tap into those aesthetics…to create marketing and branding experiences that feel relevant to those spaces.”

More than nostalgia

But brands tapping into the aesthetic may have more to consider than just borrowing the look of an old Street Fighter game. Even as there’s “a ton of love for nostalgia within the video game space,” simply “skinning” visuals, even retro visuals, likely isn’t enough to make a meaningful impact—especially if it doesn’t make sense for the brand to play in that space, Culp advised.

To that end, using a video game setting, complete with the retro aesthetics that can naturally accompany it, as a way to experience the brand could be more appealing to people than nostalgia alone, Dylan Cimo, a creative director at TBWA\Chiat\Day LA who worked on Jack in the Box’s gaming effort, told us.

When it comes to making the ads themselves, tapping into the video game aesthetic can also require some creative thinking. For Coinbase, much of the video game look was achieved through practical effects that “down-resed reality,” Catherine Ferdon, Coinbase CMO, told us.

“We built a practical video game–style set with graphic-like textures and painted-on clothing and prosthetic masks and makeup that gave our actors this really uncanny game-like feel,” she said. “It helps build this physical fake world that portrays a human being trapped inside the character [and] allowing him to burst out.”

Tapping into the look can also present other interactive opportunities for consumers, which Cimo said can be an attractive choice for brands looking to engage consumers that increasingly expect high-quality entertainment experiences, branded or otherwise.

When making Dealquest: Revenge of the Munchies, a choose-your-own-adventure-style game for Jack in the Box, the primary goal was to “increase offer redemption,” explained Jake Roberts, creative director at TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, adding that the team thought it could make the chain stand out in the QSR space with a memorable digital experience. That turned out to be true, per Roberts, who shared that the brand saw an increase in offer redemption in the quarter.

Getting results like that may help make it easier for brand teams to sell the idea that targeting gamers can pay off.

“There’s finally convincing enough data to support that games are mainstream,” Cimo said.