Benoît Pourgaton joined Gameloft in 2004 as a product marketing manager and took on many different marketing roles throughout the years before becoming our senior marketing director!
Benoît has seen the evolution of the gaming industry and Gameloft firsthand, and he brings his 17 years of expertise to market research, product marketing, digital marketing, and brand development!
Find out more what it means to be a senior marketing director, some of his most memorable moments, and what he loves about working at Gameloft below!
Hi, Benoît! Tell us about yourself.
I’m the senior marketing director at Gameloft HQ in Paris. My journey at Gameloft is quite a long one; I joined in 2004 as a (and back then the only) product marketing manager, and I’ve always been in marketing positions since then.
It’s been fascinating to see the company evolve over time from a few hundreds to several thousand employees and reinvent itself multiple times to remain relevant and successful on what was then a very nascent and is now such a massive and competitive market: mobile gaming.
It doesn’t really feel like I work in the same organization anymore today because so many things have changed! But this is a positive thing and the reason why I’m still here and having fun. At the same time, I’m grateful I was given the chance to put in place several marketing teams, initiatives, and processes that are still used today.
What is your role, and what do you enjoy most about your job?
I oversee market research, product marketing, digital marketing, and brand development with the help of four talented teams that I am very proud to manage.
I really enjoy the large scope this encompasses as it covers most of the user journey marketing-wise. And as such, it definitely brings a lot of challenging and brain-stimulating topics on a daily basis.
Through market research with our Consumer & Market Insights team, we aim at better understanding market trends, consumer motivations, and our game audiences overall. This helps inform our overall marketing approach.
Product Marketing is then responsible for setting the launch strategies and yearly marketing plans of the games, creating their brand identity, and developing multi-channel marketing programs. Digital Marketing deploys this strategy online and on social media and aims at creating engagement with our users through community building and management.
With Brand Development, a more recent endeavor at Gameloft, we look at extending our top tier IPs in fields like consumer products, books, entertainment, etc. We already have a few fun projects in the pipelines, which we should be able to announce soon.
Putting all of this into motion means interconnecting with a large array of people, both internally and externally, and being exposed to various expertise, cultures, and more often than not, individuals with a true passion and vision. Maybe this is what makes this job the most enriching—I still have the feeling I learn every day from these interactions and am always discovering something new.
What are some of your most memorable moments at Gameloft?
There’s a lot I can think of for sure, but in these times of work from home and restricted traveling, I would say: trips! Whether it was visiting Gameloft studios around the world and having colleagues showing me their favorite places in their city or attending industry events together like E3, GDC, Apple Keynote, Gamescom, these have always been a lot of fun!
I also have strong memories related to several projects we developed with partners—Gameloft is known for its collaboration with prestigious IP owners. Getting to see a bit behind the scenes and meeting other passionate people at Disney, Lego, and Universal; visiting the assembly line at Lamborghini; attending movie premieres; and even meeting a couple celebrities for some collaborations that did (or did not) happen… At the end of the day, it’s quite an extensive list of anecdotes and fond memories.
What advice do you have for people who want to work in gaming in a similar role?
I’d say be yourself.
Today, gaming’s reach is phenomenal. It covers plenty of practices and genres from mainstream segments to smaller niches and has spilled over to many subcultures.
I think anyone true to their passion has something to bring to the industry. When I joined, the industry seemed a bit more stereotyped to me, and I’m happy this has changed. I now see people with more diverse backgrounds, more inclusivity, etc.
I think you also need to be profoundly adaptable because what works today in game marketing most certainly won’t work anymore in a couple years. So you need to test new things all the time, be ready to learn, and keep your eyes wide open for inspiration coming from other areas and fields of expertise.
Want to join an ever-evolving and always exciting industry? Come and join us! Benoît is currently looking for a senior product marketing manager for Asphalt 9: Legends, which you can apply for here! Stay tuned for another edition of Humans Behind the Game!
