Editor’s Note: An article in CM sister pub AdExchanger reviews an innovative campaign from the B2C sector: Ally Financial’s collab with Fortnite’s open-source creator platform to launch a new golf game and transport players to its virtual Ally Arena—all while promoting the financial brand’s sponsorship of the USGA.

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Traditional sports sponsorships only go so far in today’s fragmented media landscape.

Marketers need to engage sports fans outside the games themselves, and they need to look beyond TV to court the youths, who have never been tethered to cable.

That’s where video games come in. Since 2023, Ally Financial has partnered with youth marketing platform SuperAwesome to build interactive experiences inside the hit online megagame Fortnite. Using Fortnite’s open-source creator platform, Ally and SuperAwesome built a virtual location dubbed the Ally Arena, which hosts games inspired by Ally’s sports partnerships.

Ally’s newest Fortnite game, “Tee Time Speedrun,” launched last week to promote its sponsorship of the United States Golf Association (USGA). Ally also contributed to the $12 million in prizes awarded at this year’s LPGA US Women’s Open, the largest ever purse for a women’s golf tournament.

The Women’s Open prize and the Fortnite game tie into Ally’s 50/50 Pledge, an initiative the company introduced in 2022 with the goal of reaching gender parity in its sports sponsorships.

“To reach communities, you have to go where they are,” said Beth Woodruff, Ally’s senior director of brand strategy, integrations, gaming and innovation. “We get more eyeballs and longer engagement times through our gaming portfolios than a lot of other things we’ve tested.”

To read the full article in AdExchanger, go here.