Media Plan Nitty-Gritty

Oct 20, 2008

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MEDIA PLAN NITTY-GRITTY
It's a rare media plan that has a line item for in-game advertising. The money usually comes from a digital or emerging media budget, those in the industry say, or, increasingly, it's siphoned off from traditional spending on TV, print and out of home.

    What's more common these days are long-term commitments to the medium. It's not unusual for an advertiser to buy 52 weeks of in-game marketing, or to spend seven-figures on in-game ad campaigns. Many of those advertising in the space are return customers.


    But Jogo Media CEO Jay Drago predicts that in the near future, "the industry will reach a point where adding in-game to a media plan will be as straightforward as it is today with Web or video content. The metrics, standards and purchasing methods will be very familiar to most media planners." He and other in-game ad sellers think the key to future growth is deeper and more thorough research. It's been a good gauge so far to measure exposure, awareness and recall, but studies will dig further into the game-playing demo to give advertisers a better picture of who they are, what they want and how they behave when they're not in front of their Sony PS3.
    
    "We've answered a lot of the foundation questions about game players, but advertisers want to know more," says Massive's Lange. "A quick-service restaurant wants to know how often these gamers eat fast food, a company like adidas wants to know if they're athletes, and a telcom wants to know if they play music and games on their cell phones."

    There's continuous research going on to try to answer those questions and more, like how gaming combines with other media to influence a purchase, and how gamers stack up with non-gamers in their choices and behaviors toward the brands that use in-game ads.

    "It's about getting to the next level of accountability," says Optimedia's Rao. "The business needs to get better at measuring metrics."
    
    Two groups collaborating on metrics issues are the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Media Rating Council.

    "So far, different companies have had different rules and used different ways to monetize in-game ads," says David Gunzerath, Media Rating Council's senior vp/associate director. "That leads to confusion on the buying side. The goal is to come up with rules to make the industry accountable to advertisers."

    The groups are consulting with ad agencies, media companies, ad sellers in the videogame space, and brands that want to reach the highly coveted 18-34-year-old core gaming audience.

    A draft of the guidelines is expected by year's end. It will circulate first with the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

    The effort already has its fans. "The IAB has done a fantastic job at coordinating the ad standards effort by pulling all key in-game ad stakeholders together," says Drago. "We know that the lack of published standards is impacting the industry's growth, so it's not surprising that there's such a high level of cooperation within the group."

    With so many forces combining to increase volume and drive growth of the medium, the in-game opportunities for marketers continue to expand. The trick will be not to get too carried away, to keep the game space from turning into a cluttered environment. Marketers and in-game sellers must be keenly aware that they're working with a savvy audience that knows when it's being messaged, and be careful not to jeopardize the relationship.


For more Videogame Advertising coverage:
Game On!
Bigger Playing Field
Media Plan Nitty-Gritty