Global brands are increasingly exploring new frontiers to build cultural relevance and connect with their audiences. In this landscape, gaming has emerged as one of the most influential digital environments for interaction, entertainment, and community.

Rather than treating these spaces as traditional advertising channels, companies are beginning to approach them as platforms for creating immersive brand experiences.

It was in this context that a conversation between YPF and Exomindset began during South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. From that exchange, a simple yet ambitious idea took shape: exploring how the brand’s universe could be translated into an interactive experience within Fortnite.

The challenge

For a brand like YPF, the goal was not simply to gain visibility in a new channel. The challenge was more strategic: how to build relevance in a media ecosystem where attention is increasingly fragmented and highly competitive.

Younger generations are watching less television, yet they remain constantly exposed to brand messaging through platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. While these channels are essential for communication and digital advertising, they are also saturated environments where engagement tends to be brief and largely passive.

In this context, YPF faced a more meaningful question than simply “how do we reach younger audiences?” The real challenge was how to foster a more active relationship with new generations in environments where the brand is not perceived as an interruption, but as part of an experience people actively choose to engage with.

This challenge became even more nuanced when considering the role of YPF Full within the broader company ecosystem. Rather than targeting a single audience segment, YPF Full is an everyday, cross-functional space that serves a wide range of people, from young consumers to families and travelers. Exploring gaming made it possible to start building cultural affinity with younger audiences while staying true to the broader scope of the brand.

The opportunity, therefore, went beyond creating a one-off activation within a video game. The ambition was to design an experience capable of bridging the digital and physical worlds, allowing in-game interactions to extend into the real YPF Full ecosystem through rewards, benefits, and new forms of consumer engagement.

A new frontier for the brand

The project launched in early March, and the island remains live within the Fortnite ecosystem, allowing players to continue exploring the experience.

With this initiative, YPF became one of the first Argentine companies to create its own experience on the platform, opening a new channel for experimenting with interaction formats that go beyond traditional digital media.

Within just a few weeks of launch, the island ranked among the top three most played experiences globally in the Prop Hunt category, an early signal of the level of interest these types of experiences can generate within the gaming community.

Beyond these initial results, the project points to something broader: a tangible exploration of how brands can begin to build a presence in interactive environments where audiences do not just consume content, but actively participate in it.

Metrics two weeks after launch

• Top 3 Global – En Modalidad Prop Hunt
• +115.000 jugadores únicos
• +170.000 gameplays
• +59.000 horas de juego
• 39 minutos de tiempo promedio de permanencia por sesión