Bigger Playing Field

Oct 20, 2008

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BIGGER PLAYING FIELD
Just in the last 18 months or so, new options have opened up to advertisers. Major game publishers like Activision, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and 2K Sports have started allowing in-game ads in their marquee titles, where they'd held those back in the past for fear of a gamer backlash. Once they found no push-back for billboards, banners and full-scale product integrations, they opened up best-selling titles like Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell franchise, Guitar Hero 4 and Madden Football '09.

    "The quality and depth of content has increased across all gaming genres," says Massive's Lange. "The game publishers thought it was too risky in the beginning, but now the best content is out there for marketers. Some of these titles are extremely mainstream, part of pop culture."

    Perhaps the most important recent development in the in-game ad business happened this summer when Sony opened up its PlayStation 3. Xbox already accepted in-game ads, and with the addition of PS3 (100 million of the Web-enabled devices have sold worldwide), marketers could buy across a vast range of titles and basically become a living, breathing part of the gaming platforms.

    "That was the shoe that everyone was waiting to drop," says Double Fusion's Epstein, whose company quickly made a deal to sell ads on the hot platform. Competitor
IGA Worldwide also has ad-selling rights. "All of a sudden, we're swimming in content," says Justin Townsend, CEO and co-founder of IGA Worldwide. "We just have to sell it, and that doesn't seem to be a problem."

    Those Internet-enabled platforms are more than just gaming devices. They're entertainment centers, often the heart of family rooms around the country, attached to high-definition flat-screen TVs and humming along as often as any prime-time TV network.

    Core gamers, those 18-34-year-old males, spend 12 percent less time watching television in prime time and 20 percent more time playing videogames, says IGA's Townsend, citing results of a recent survey by Nielsen Games (a unit of Brandweek parent company Nielsen).

    As costs to develop games have increased-it can run upwards of $15 million to create a new title-in-game advertising has become an important source of revenue for game publishers. That reality gave rise to a cottage industry, in-game ad-selling firms, that popped up virtually overnight. Publishers and ad sellers now work closely as partners.

    Product placement, or sponsorship deals where a brand is baked into a physical videogame cassette, is still part of the business. In fact, it launched the space, with car brands woven into racing games and sneakers into sports titles, among other endemic advertising.

    Industry executives say that model is still a viable tool for marketers, though it requires a significant amount of planning and a long wait while the game is developed. It's costly and not nearly as flexible as dynamic advertising, which has become the tactic of choice for most marketers trying to reach the game-playing public.

MESSAGING TO FIT THE MEDIUM
Where once marketers repurposed their campaigns from TV or outdoor, they and their agencies now customize their campaigns for the medium, in some cases making the ads closely reflect the theme of specific games.



    Paramount Pictures recently created a scavenger hunt to promote the release of its summer comedy Tropic Thunder. Gamers could collect clues as they played Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 on the Xbox 360 platform. Each step of the way, the marketer message-go see this movie!-was reinforced, while gamers who completed the hunt were rewarded with insider information about how to improve their
Rainbow Six scores and chances to win movie-themed prizes.



    The scavenger hunt, like any interactive ad within a game, was built so that gamers could opt in, or not. That's a vital part of in-game advertising, say veterans in the space. Gamers have shown they will accept in-game ads as long as the marketing doesn't interfere with game play or slow it down. Value-add is the catchphrase here, meaning the ad campaign needs to give the gamers something in return for their attention, like cheat codes, special access or swag.

    Mindshare hired British comic book artist and co-creator of the experimental band Gorillaz to create images for Ford's in-game ad campaigns. "We looked for an illustrator with cultural significance with the audience," says Mindshare's Brian Bos. "We wanted to be more stylized." They also crafted the ads with gamer-speak to mirror the way gamers communicate with each other. And when you get it right, you see results.

    Ford Motor Co. has been active in dynamic in-game advertising for the last few years, using it to help launch the young-skewing Ford Edge. The idea then was to use the space as an awareness builder, but executives said they found it was a powerful tool in boosting opinion and consideration.

    "We were astounded at how strong the lift was," says Bos. "We learned that in-game advertising could influence people to go to our Web site, to visit our dealerships. It enticed them to spend time with the brand elsewhere."

    In-game ad firms are hearing from more advertisers that they want to be more integral to the games themselves, making their products responsible for a gamer getting to the next level of play, gathering more strength and earning more points. Those requests, and the way they're executed, are making up the next wave of in-game ads where brands-their attributes and messages, too-are more seamlessly embedded in games.

    "For big buys, you need big ideas," Epstein asserts. "It's the same with any ad medium."
    
    Executives at T-Mobile want to enhance game play and build brand credibility. They know that if they can achieve that, gamers will evangelize for them. Dedicated players have been found to be more likely to talk about products they like (or don't) with each other and to recommend their favorites.

    "It's all about engaging and connecting with this audience," Rao says. "The biggest concern is how you authentically add to the user experience and bring a dose of reality to the game."


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