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An eight-point checklist
Given all this, what questions should we be asking? What are the data points that will help inform this industry's engagement with in-game advertising in the exciting days after the Xbox 360 launch?
- What is the installed base of the next-generation consoles today, and how many of those are used by connected gamers?
- What will the installed bases of both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 (due to launch in 2006) be in three years, and how fast can those online gaming communities grow?
- How will SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) and Microsoft choose to let marketers into their console systems? Will they continue to offer brand marketers the chance to message while the start up screen loads and to sponsor various online events, or will they embrace this notion of third party ad serving and welcome ad rotation into their games so we’ll see billboards and signage changing on the fly, just like we see ads rotating throughout websites? (Neither Microsoft or SCEA has weighed in on this publicly.)
- Who is playing online? If the average age of the PC Gamer is 30 and the average age of a console gamer is 22, what games do you use to reach what target audience?
- Following the broadcast/HBO model in TV, will value games integrate dynamic advertising, while premium brands (like Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise) stay advertising free?
- How do you value signage within a game? Does a billboard on the street have the same value as a billboard in an online game like Splinter Cell? Is it low CPM like outdoor?
- Is in-game advertising like buying TV, where you might want to buy Pimp my Ride but you also have to buy or take run-of-network inventory along with it? Or, on the other hand, is it crazy to think that games might be, in effect, a network, as every game is different, attracting a different audience and different usage or time spent?
- What will gamers -- who are arguably younger, more technology savvy and cynical consumers -- think as their game play environments become commercialized and monetized beyond consumer retail dollars?
Cast your memory back to 1995, a time before the AAAA released terms and conditions for interactive, before the OPA and IAB began to govern the interactive world. We’ve worked through a decade of discussion on the standard way to count an impression -- without resolving the question. How is in-game advertising going to be measured? Nielsen and Activision made some announcements a few years back, but there is still tremendous work to be done in the area.
So what are the opportunities for marketers to get involved with games?
The opportunities can be put into a few buckets:
1. Develop an advergame that works for your brand.
and
2. Work on product placement and brand integration directly with a game publisher.
There have been very slick and well-integrated product placement deals going on for years. Look at what Electronic Arts (the world’s biggest video game publisher) has done with companies like Honda, where in a snowboarding game SSX Tricky the boarder does a trick flying through the doors of a Honda Element. It works for the gamer (it’s a cool trick) and it works for Honda as one of the defining features of that car was the functionality of the doors.
Static Billboards and signage within a game are exactly what they sound like. You drive by a Best Buy store for Need for Speed. Billboards, signage and posters are used commercially in the game, just like in real life.
The controversy comes in when you start to weigh the value of whizzing by an eBay “gate” on a mountain bike or whipping past a McDonald's logo. This is the difference between branding and brand meaning: how much can be communicated just by a logo? Given that most American kids can recognize 50 brand logos by the age of seven -- and not be able to identify a single tree leaf -- it seems that brand meaning is more critical then simple logo exposure. We can spot the golden arches a mile away, but if signage delivers little room for copy points or interaction with the brand, how should media planners value this within the game?
Now we move into the new frontier…
3. Dynamic in-game advertising
Right now, this mostly involves PC games, and inventory is quite limited. There simply aren’t that many game publishers that have embraced this sort of advertising and worked through the complexities (or value, or appropriateness) of this new media opportunity.
In-game advertising veterans will remember Spider-Man and the “logoing” of the base path.
Major League Baseball came very close to rolling out a 6” by 6” image of Spidey on first, second and third base, but they quickly changed course when they saw that 80 percent of their fans were unhappy. Like baseball fans, gamers will accept some commercial messaging within games, but context is everything.
Like baseball fans, gamers will not be happy if you logo the bases, but -- metaphorically speaking -- they'll be pleased to wipe the rain off their seat with a Spider-Man rag that some nice fellow handed them on their way into the ball park. Keep the seat dry and Spidey has come to the rescue. Distract the gamer's attention with a red and blue superhero while watching Ricky Henderson steal second and you’ll have a consumer who just had a brand step right in between them and the thing they love.
Think about ways to provide value to gamers within their gaming environments. Do something for them in the form of providing cheats or special level maps or powers that can be unlocked.
And let's keep the metaphorical Spidey off the bases…
As senior vice president of sales and marketing for CNET Network’s Games & Entertainment division which consists of GameSpot, TV.com and MP3.com, Suzie Reider oversees all aspects of sales development, marketing strategy and online advertising research trends. Under her leadership, the GameSpot and MP3.com sales and marketing teams have created some of the most innovative online advertising campaigns in the industry. Reider also spearheaded the ground-breaking first online Starch campaign, which received critical acclaim in the advertising industry.
Before joining CNET Networks, Reider spent 14 years in high-tech publishing, where she leveraged her expertise in advertising sales, promotions, research and marketing for publications such as Computer Gaming World, Office PlayStation Magazine, Computer Life and PC/Computing at Ziff-Davis Publishing. From its launch in 1996 to 2002, she played an integral part in conceiving, planning and implementing the speaker sessions for the Ziff Davis Electronic Gaming Summit.
Reider has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and Advertising Age, among other publications, and can speak to topics in the online advertising space, as well as to innovative ways of reaching the burgeoning youth and 18 to 34 demographics.
