Marketing is a crucial part of doing business. It’s hard to get anywhere if people don’t know about your product and services - and it’s difficult for people to choose you if they don’t know you exist. Marketing is not just a specific team’s job - to some degree, it’s the job of everyone within the organization. If your team isn’t classically trained in marketing, it’s a good idea to help them step up their game. 

One of the most engaging ways to do that is through marketing games. Marketing games are activities or exercises that enhance the promotional skills of employees. These games will not only improve your team’s marketing and communication skills, but support team bonding and morale too. Many of the options presented here are a form of problem solving games or communication games. 

19 Marketing games for your work team

1. New product ideas

New product development is an important skill for anyone who works in the consumer industry. You can help to hone these skills with this exercise. Start by dividing your team into groups of 5. Their job is to brainstorm and come up with ideas for a new product. Have them pick their favorite and come up with an entire marketing plan, from planning to promotion. Encourage them to think outside the box - and you never know, they might come up with your company’s next best-selling product! 

2. The five-minute pitch

This exercise helps with marketing skills as well as presentation and communication capabilities. It’s a risk-free and comfortable way for even your shy team members to practice talking in front of others. Start by dividing your team into small groups or pairs, and then give each group a random object from around the office (such as a notebook or coffee cup). Set a timer and give each group or pair 5 minutes to pitch the product to the room. If you want to add a competitive element, you can have a judge or panel of judges that will ultimately choose a winner. Otherwise, just let each team pitch with their allotted time and see how creative everyone can be. 

3. Restaurant pricing

“Price” is one of the four Ps of marketing, but is an often overlooked element. An exercise that helps your team to come up with a pricing strategy and see how it impacts overall revenue can be really helpful. This game takes about 45 minutes and you’ll need someone who is an Excel whiz to document the numbers portion. To begin, come up with a menu of items for your “restaurant”. You’ll also need an Excel or Google Sheet that has rows for each item, and columns to place cost of goods, price, number sold, and margin. The goal of your group is to come up with pricing for each item that nets a great profit. However, they need to be realistic about things like the cost to make each item and how many people will buy it. If the price gets too high, they should plan to have less customers. This can start a great conversation on pricing strategy overall. How high does the price need to be before customers turn away? How low can you keep prices while still getting a decent margin? Using a template that has formulas built in means your team can just plug in different numbers to come up with several scenarios. This is a great way to drive home the point that even small price changes can make a big difference on the bottom line. 

4. Marketing trivia

Trivia is a great activity for almost any team in any event. You can also include this game in remote events, since it’s something that can be executed virtually. You can also find free resources to make customized questions online. For this version, you should focus on marketing or other company-related information. Consider basics like “What are the 4 P’s of marketing?” or “Which online company generates the highest revenue globally?” You can also create questions that are specific to your business or even team members. Trivia helps with critical thinking skills, too. 

5. Shark tank

If you’ve seen the show “Shark Tank”, then you know what this game entails. The basis is trying to convince a group of people to invest in your new company or product. Divide your team into two groups, and set up a panel of judges. Give each judge a pile of fake money that they can invest how they see fit. Then have each team present their idea and pitch to the “investors”. Investors can split their money among the teams, for example a 60/40 split, or give all of it to one team. This is another free activity and also makes a great option for team-building without materials. 

6. Social media contest

If digital marketing is an area you want your team to focus on, this fun game can help. To start, have people work as individuals or break larger teams up into groups of no more than 3. Then assign each team a product or other thing to promote (such as an upcoming event). They should design a social media post complete with imagery, copy, links, etc. When everyone’s work is complete, publish all of the posts on your corporate social media. Over the course of 24 hours, see how many likes or how much engagement each post receives. If you want to treat this exercise as a contest, pick a winner at the end and offer a prize. It’s important to note that this activity is best for people who are on your marketing team or have some knowledge of digital marketing - you need to make sure that all the posts are appropriate and aligned with your brand before they are published. 

7. Movie elevator pitch

You may have heard of an “elevator pitch”, where people have a brief summary prepared in advance about what they do, or what their company does. This is an important skill for everyone to have for networking and connecting with other professionals. This game helps workers to practice these skills and get a little creative in the process. Start by choosing a movie and then asking employees to create a short elevator pitch regarding something present in the movie. For example, they might want to create a pitch based on Batman’s mask or an engagement ring from your favorite rom-com. See how everyone incorporates innovative marketing strategies and descriptions into their elevator pitches. 

8. “Suddenly” story

This is a fun game that brings out lots of creativity and improves communication. Have your team sit in a circle and instruct everyone that they will get to share 3 sentences only. Choose a person to start, and they’ll share their 3 sentences. Once finished, they should say “suddenly!” and then the next person in the circle takes their turn. This cycle continues until you reach the last person in the group, who should conclude the story. For a twist, you can have people make up a completely fictional story, or include real-world information to form a realistic narrative. This makes it amusing but also helps with overall story-telling, which is a key part of effective marketing. 

9. The super story

This is another game focused on group wordplay, and one that can be done virtually as well as in person. It’s also really fun, so a great exercise for boosting team morale. To begin, let each person know they’ll take a turn as the story-teller. They should grab an object around them - like a pen or pad of paper - and spend one minute telling the most exaggerated story they can come up with around the object. For example, if their object is a pen, they might talk about how this was the pen used to sign a deal for the most famous athlete in their city. It’s also a game that puts people on the spot and makes them come up with something under pressure, so it’s an especially helpful activity for management level team members. 

10. Stranger conversation stretch

It’s easy for people to become uncomfortable talking to people they don’t know well, but it’s an important skill - especially for people who deal with customers. For this game, have each participant go outside and strike up a conversation with a stranger. One of the easiest ways to do this is by asking for directions to a local landmark or by asking for a restaurant recommendation. However, each person has the goal of continuing the conversation for a few minutes longer. For example, if they ask about a great local restaurant, they may then ask about the best thing to order. See who can continue their conversation the longest - you may even want to award a prize. You might also want to have a discussion following the exercise where people share how it went, how they felt, tips for talking to strangers, etc. 

11. Marketing lingo

If you want a quick game during a break or to supplement other activities, this is a good choice. Start by dividing your group into sets of 3. Have each group select an item and then use “marketing lingo” to develop catchy taglines, a motto, commercial jingle, etc. This is the perfect quick office game for almost any scenario. 

12. Mock commercials

This activity is the opposite of a quick office game. It requires some time and preparation, but is worth it! Have employees choose a product or service and then create a commercial to sell it. You’ll need a space for everyone to act in, plus recording devices and a way for everyone to watch. Some companies add another layer of complexity by using two bowls. Each bowl has several slips of paper with a word written on it. In one bowl is the style of commercials, such as humorous, scary, or emotional. In the other bowl is an object, such as soda or a copy machine. Have each group pick one paper from each bowl and base their commercial on that. So, you might have one group that creates a scary commercial about a copy machine. Doing it this way necessitates more creativity and often leads to a lot of laughs. 

13. Concentration

In the 1960s, there was a really popular game show of this name, and this is a clever variation. There are also various children’s games with the same concept, since it’s essentially a matching game. It offers a fun way to review things like products, taglines, advertising concepts, etc. To begin, create 30 tiles (or papers), and on the back of each write or have an image of a certain thing. The trick is that two of the tiles have the same thing on them - they’re a matching pair. Unlike a memory game where there are several matching pairs, this game has just one pair, while all the other tiles are unique. Have each team member take a turn flipping two tiles. Everyone should pay attention so that they can try to remember what’s underneath. The person who flips two of the same tiles and uncovers the pair wins. This game is also a really good memory-jogger, and you can up the educational ante by having people describe something about what’s on the tile. For example, if a consumer goods company wants to have employees review a new product line, they can show pictures of products only and each person must state what the product is and one selling point about it. Remember, you’ll need a fairly big space, a board or floor to place the tiles, and big enough tiles that everyone can see. 

14. Marketing charades

Charades can be fun and helpful in almost any scenario, and business is no different! For this version, divide the team into two groups. Then have each group get a product, slogan, or promotional tactic to act out, while the other team guesses it. You can focus on products from your company or overall marketing concepts like social media. Keep in mind: the more vague the idea, the harder it will be to act out! You may want to use a charades generator found online to help come up with unique ideas. 

15. Pop quiz

Any employees who didn’t care for school and dreaded those pop quizzes may not be a fan of this idea - but the truth is a quiz is an effective way of reviewing knowledge and people are much more likely to pay attention if they know they’ll be quizzed at the end of something. If you have a working session or marketing team retreat happening, let people know that at the end of the day there will be a short, timed quiz based on what was presented (you can create this in advance if you know what will be discussed). For a little extra incentive, you may want to have a prize for the first person finished, such as an afternoon of PTO. This provided extra motivation to pay close attention and absorb important material. 

16. Place our product

This is a great exercise for product marketing teams and a lot of fun to boot. It’s also a really good team-building exercise and especially a good indoor team-building activity. To start, you’ll need to have several short clips of movies or sitcom episodes queued up. You’ll also need a way of streaming these clips on a device that everyone can see (like a projector). Set out the new products you want to discuss. After each clip, have the team discuss the perfect placement for the new product. If they were in charge of the film, where would they have used the new products for maximum promotion? This can be an especially powerful game for teams who deal with media creation. 

Bonus: Marketing games to play with customers

What if you want to improve your marketing and promotional efforts by engaging more customers? Gamification is the act of “applying typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.” Turning various efforts into a sort of game has become really popular, and for good reason. 

If you want to give it a try with your own target audience, try these tactics: 

17. Instant win games

Instant gratification is a powerful motivator for most people. If you want people to buy more of your product, try putting together a game where they can find out if they won or lost immediately. For example, having people scratch to win, spin a wheel, or pull a lever on a slot machine are all simple actions that could result in an exciting prize for your customers. It can be as simple as a retail store putting together a wheel to spin that has various prizes or discounts attached, and asking each customer if they want to give it a whirl. If you put it near the front of your store, you may be surprised how many people stop in. Make sure to promote it (and the winners) on social media for even more traction. 

18. Knowledge-based quizzes

If your company is especially reliant on customer loyalty, then anything you can do to increase dedication is a smart move. You can put together a quiz for your biggest fans to take to prove they know your business better than anyone. For example, an athletic shoe brand may have a timeline of shoe designs going back 20 years, and whoever can properly label the timeline is a winner. Or, a television show might put together a quiz about the TV characters and their history. Though radio is not as popular as it once was, many stations used to engage in a form of this loyalty testing by sharing codes throughout the day. If someone could call in with all the codes (to prove they listened all day), they were a winner. This adds another layer of fun and excitement for customers, and works particularly well for consumer goods that tend to have high degrees of repeat business. 

19. Social media engagement

Social media is key in our digital marketing ecosystem, and real engagement is important. Rather than simply posting and hoping people like or share your content, why not make a contest that supports interaction between your brand and your followers? For instance, you might publish a funny photo and have a caption or hashtag contest. Or, you might ask everyone to share your post and have a sweepstakes where you draw the winner from all who completed the action. Social media games are also great additions to brand loyalty programs, and social provides another avenue for people to not only engage with your brand but help to spread your reach to their own followers. 

Super-size your sales retreat

Many organizations host special retreats for their sales teams. Sales retreats - along with marketing team retreats and general team-building retreats - are an excellent opportunity to engage in marketing games, team sales games, or sales team-building activities. These enhance valuable skills that any professional can benefit from. 

We suggest putting together an agenda that is a mix of education, communication, and socialization. Pick a few games to break up working sessions or presentations. That offers a great way to give everyone a break for some fun and movement, while still focusing on important skills. If you aren’t sure how to put together an impactful agenda, just reach out to us. We help teams to build out ultimate team-building retreats that employees remember and enjoy.