This research was conducted to update the content of the International Business Studies curriculum. The dynamically developing business environment, including the shift towards hybrid work, deepened the widely reported misalignment between business communication instruction and industry requirements. Thus, we resolved to discover what this misalignment entails and will present the employers’ unmet needs concerning recent graduates’ communication skills.
MULTIFILE
Grote opgaven zoals de energietransitie, klimaatverandering en verstedelijking vragen om ruimte in de ondergrond, bijvoorbeeld om bodemenergie te winnen, CO2 op te slaan of voor het aanleggen van warmtenetten. Deze ondergrondse ingrepen hebben ruimtelijke effecten en zouden daarom meegenomen moeten worden in ruimtelijke afwegingen. Dit gebeurt mede door hun onzichtbaarheid nu meestal niet. Daardoor wordt de potentie van de ondergrond niet optimaal benut. Onderzoek inTwente laat zien hoe dit anders zou kunnen.
MULTIFILE
This study will examine how branded games in the LEGO Ninjago franchise communicate the brand narrative through their mechanical, semiotic and referential design. Digital games as communicative tools facilitate a new paradigm of marketing focusing on experience creation through integrated marketing communication plans. The LEGO brand creates highly successful games that communicate the brand effectively. To explore the possibilities and counteract the simplistic use of branded games, this study introduces an innovative framework to formally analyze branded games and their communication of a brand narrative through mechanical, semiotic and referential layers. This framework introduces formal game design to advertising studies, while dragging game studies into branded ecosystems. Using the framework, we analyze LEGO Ninjago the Movie – The Videogame, to identify how this paid digital game expands the Ninjago universe and fulfills specific marketing purposes oriented to LEGO toy sets. Our analysis shows that on a mechanical and semiotic layer, the game presents a standalone experience catering to the universe of the Ninjago movie and the values of the Ninjago brand narrative. However, by framing the whole game as LEGO – in its materiality and interactable objects – the LEGO brand narrative of creative construction informs the act of play. The referential design in these games makes use of playful disruption of rules to instill additive comprehension in the player related to purchasable sets and content.
