With the cost to get involved coming down and the return on buy increasing, it's time for marketers to gamble on games.

Editor's note: Julie Shumaker, senior vice president of sales and marketing for DoubleFusion and a source for this article, will be a speaker at iMedia's Breakthrough summit March 16 through March 19 in Rancho Mirage, California. Request an invitation.

Someday it will be a textbook case in Marketing 101: How 7-Eleven managed to sell Slurpees in a virtual world.

Last November's announcement by the convenience store chain that it would start selling Nexon Game Cards to teen- and 'tween-aged fans of the mega-multi-player video game MapleStory signaled an attempt to bridge the growing gap between virtual-world consumption and traditional retail. The cards can be redeemed for virtual in-game accessories like clothes, pets or hip haircuts, cutting out the need for mom's credit card. Players can also visit a virtual in-game 7-Eleven store and, perhaps, sip a Slurpee.

With millions of users all over the world, MapleStory is a high-value marketing channel in the booming world of casual gaming. But there are plenty of other gaming channels with varying demographics, reach and ad-content potential.

The premier titles in console games like "Test Drive Unlimited" and "Battlefield 2142" offered on console game platforms or a PC are accessible through in-game advertising networks like Massive and Double Fusion. Or many brands are using advergaming, which are games developed especially for brand sites and their target demographic. Each type of game advertising has advantages when considering target audience, time schedule and cost. But they all have huge potential for reaching the consumer, says Julie Shumaker, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Double Fusion.

"Advertisers who are trying to reach the consumer in games have to recognize the importance of the game to the player," Shumaker says. "The teenager playing World of Warcraft for 19 hours a month is no more engrossed than the 40-year-old woman playing solitaire on Pogo.com for the same amount of time."

Billboard or battlefield?
Building a virtual 7-Eleven store into a game requires a coordinated effort between the brand and the game's developer and hence more time. Many brands instead choose two-dimensional billboard ads or posters that are easily inserted into games.

Intel, for example, spotlights its message on buildings in the futuristic "Battlefield 2142."

In Atari's "Test Drive Unlimited," automakers feature their latest sports models in virtual dealerships where gamers can customize the vehicles before taking them out for a spin.

And in Kuma Game's "DinoHunters," a 3D version of the crashed airplane in the ABC series "Lost" is part of the backdrop.

More complex branding worked for Burger King when it placed a three-dimensional King in Electronic Arts' "Fight Night" but the chain also had runaway success selling a boxed version of its own casual game at its restaurants.

Online versions of Hearst Media's magazines offer advergames like "Editor’s Assistant" that emphasize the brand's reader demographics and interests.

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