With the wireless gaming market in Asia/Pacific set to reach $1.3 billion in 2008, advergaming is gaining momentum.

The business of video games for mobile phones must be one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries in the world today. According to IDC's latest report,” Asia/Pacific Wireless Gaming 2004-2008 Analysis and Forecast: Ready to Play?," the wireless gaming market in Asia/Pacific (ex Japan) reached US$237.4 million in 2003, and is expected to reach US$1.3 billion in 2008 with a 40 percent CAGR.

With statistics like these, global brand marketers targeting Asia Pacific have a huge market opportunity: wireless advergames.

Advergames, a powerful tool to build brand loyalty and capture crucial data about existing and potential customers, consists of unique interactive games with a suite of advertising creatives built in. By combining games and ads, it's possible to improve branding, boost product awareness and collect detailed data about participants.

For brand marketers, there are a number of good reasons to deploy a sponsored mobile game. One reason is to create awareness for a brand. Second is to introduce a product or service in a way that involves and entertains the consumer as he or she interacts with the actual product. Another is educating consumers in an entertaining way about the product features and way of usage.

Advergames responds to the needs of younger, tech-savvy consumers who demand more interactivity and fun when introduced to online advertising campaigns. Look at China’s digital market for an example. In a national survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, over 60 percent of Chinese teenagers with access to the internet spend more than thirty minutes per day playing online games and visiting chat rooms. Additionally, new research from the Asia Pacific Research Group provides a detailed understanding of the consumer behavior among China’s 18- to 34-years-old demographic for internet and wireless gaming platforms. The study shows that China's online gaming industry will continue to provide significant sales opportunities for advertisers -- estimating that 49 million gamers will be actively online by 2007. The research also suggests that by the year 2020, China will have about 30 million unmarried males ages 15 to 34 -- a solid opportunity for digital media and gaming to occupy their evenings.

“It's not that men 18 to 34 have stopped watching TV," explains David Raines, Vice President for Coca-Cola in charge of divvying up ad money. "But they're doing a lot of other stuff, too" -- going online, watching DVDs, playing videogames. "The bottom line is, ad dollars will follow the consumer."

Mobile gaming is turning out to be the stickiest advergaming format, where consumers play with a brand in the lure of winning a prize, and in the process take away key messages of the brand. According to Rajiv Hiranandani, vice president of Mobile2win India, a provider of mobile brand marketing solutions in Asia, "Advergaming has the ability to involve users, to get them to interact, to entertain and engage them, and in doing so facilitate the attention value exchange that most marketers dream about. Ads will go where the eyeballs are, and cellular games are the fastest growing form of entertainment. It's a sexy trend of blending advertising and entertainment."

According to Morgan Stanley’s 2003 report regarding mobile marketing in China, there are 3.5 mobile users to one internet user -- or 300 million mobile users compared to 87 million. With these statistics, Coca-Cola China, in conjunction with MyRice.com, was smart in launching wireless advergames for fans of the Coca-Cola brand. Users simply register through Coke's Web site or SMS, become a member of the Coca-Cola club, and gain access to company news, promotion events, chats and advergames.

MyRice developed about 10 games for Coca-Cola China. These games are based on flash technology. Aside from Coca-Cola, MyRice has also developed advergames for companies such as Panasonic and Viewsonic (Taiwanese manufacturer).

To view an example of a leading advergame in China, click here.

The lure of advergames is that they are pulled in on demand (downloaded) by the end consumer in contrast to mass marketing that is pushed to end consumers. The result is a true one-to-one interaction that is perfectly measurable and identifiable per country, per wireless service provider and per handset, which makes it easy to calculate ROI. In addition, from a marketer’s point of view, there is a game for every market -- whether it's CPG, travel, automotive or entertainment.

Take a look at the dynamic opportunity of wireless advergaming in Asia, country by country:

Asia/Pacific Wireless Gaming Revenues by Country, 2003 and 2008

Source: IDC, 2004

Additional Resources:

Coke and MyRice: A Winning Recipe
Playing the Video Game Consumer

Elizabeth M. Lloyd mailto:Elizabeth@netblue.com is the Director of Corporate Marketing for Netblue, Inc., an online direct marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Previously, Lloyd was the director of marketing for opt-in email provider, NetCreations, in New York City. Prior to NetCreations, Lloyd was responsible for the PR department of ValueClick, Inc.