Gut scores Gaming prize with Neymar

AN INNOVATIVE gaming campaign that turned footballer Neymar Jr into a fridge — and other products — within the Call of Duty game has won the 2025 Entertainment Lions for Gaming Grand Prix.

The ‘Call of Discounts’ campaign was devised by Gut, Sao Paulo, for retailer Mercado Livre. It used Call of Duty’s ‘Prop Hunt’ mode, where players have to disguise themselves as furniture to survive.

In this case, 420 items were matched with real-world discount deals on products sold by Mercado Livre. Neymar Jr took on the role of hider, with a group of gaming influencers hunting him down — and unlocking deals every time they found him. The action was streamed live for fans to watch.

“It was the whole package,” said Jury President Sue Anderson, vice-president, creative, at Roblox." It truly understood the space it was going into, capturing something very specific to the game itself, and that could only happen in that particular mode of Call of Duty.”

“It was an event that happened for a short period, almost like a Super Bowl. For that moment you could attract an entire audience to get behind one thing — and have a really good time.”

Anderson said that ‘Call of Discounts’ reflected a wider trend of brands engaging deeply with gaming culture. “We kept on seeing brands really doing their homework. Taking a look at what was in the game and what the actual platform offered, and then hacking into that in really interesting ways,” Anderson said, adding: “Not just attaching themselves to gaming because they felt they needed to be in that space.”

Two Gold Lions were awarded this year, to work for Burger King and Change The Ref.