Outdoor brand High Peak tackles common gaming frustration with new campaign

German outdoor brand High Peak has partnered with Dentsu Creative Hong Kong to launch a campaign that humorously addresses gaming frustrations while promoting outdoor gear.

Also known as CAMP IRL, of which IRL stands for “in real life”, the campaign has created a crossover between digital culture and real-world adventure, seeking to spark engagement and conversation.

It comes as Dentsu Creative Hong Kong has observed a universal annoyance in the gaming community: when gamers are deeply engaged in a match, adrenaline pumping, only to be suddenly ambushed by a "camper" - those players who hide in corners and wait to pounce.

Capitalising on this common frustration, the campaign has tackled the issue by completely eliminating in-game campers. While High Peak is a brand known for selling tents, the campaign has helped stop the campers, not in the wild, but in the online video game Fortnite (要塞英雄).

The campaign has transformed High Peak’s real-world gear into hundreds of digitised campsites, strategically placed across the game’s most notorious camper hideouts. Each one came with a witty sign: “Don’t Camp Here. CAMP IRL.” The message was clear: stop hiding in-game, and start exploring the outdoors instead. The result was a camper-free battlefield - cleared of ambushes and repurposed as a playful stage for a message that nudged players to log off and head out.

The campaign is born from a shared insight between High Peak and Dentsu Creative: Gen Z is a generation of multi-hyphenates - gamers, creators, explorers - who fluidly move between digital and physical worlds.

While camping and outdoor gear have long been associated with older demographics, High Peak and Dentsu Creative see an opportunity to shift that narrative. By tapping into gaming culture, the campaign seeks to connect with a younger audience and reposition outdoor gear as something relevant, exciting, and accessible to the next generation of adventurers.

The campaign serves not only as an in-game initiative but also as a strategic shift, according to the release. With declining sales in camping gear and outdoor brands facing challenges in relevance, High Peak has focused on the gaming community. By leveraging a widely disliked gaming behaviour and reimagining it as a playful brand moment, the campaign isn't just trying to entertain, but also activate. Players are invited to capture their in-game CAMP IRL tents and share the moment on social media in exchange for High Peak purchase coupons. 

Jeffry Gamble, chief creative officer, Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong, Dentsu Creative, said: “We didn’t just want to endorse a brand or a game. We wanted to create something gamers would discover, laugh at, and share. It’s a campaign that lives where they live - inside the game - and speaks their language.”

Brent Koning, EVP of global gaming, dentsu, said: “Gaming gives brands the ability to connect with people where they live, play, and form identity. But this isn’t about slapping logos into games - it’s about understanding the culture and co-creating value within it. The brands that win are the ones that see gaming not as a media buy, but as a cultural conversation. It’s no longer a side quest - it’s the main storyline.”

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Dentsu Creative for more information.

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