links for more information about in-game advertising

here are some links to other MBA Students blogs about in-game advertising:

Trends, challenges and implications :
http://thesellinggame.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-game-advertising-and-video-games.html

Who are the consumers you can target?
http://miguelmazablog.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-game-advertising-so-what.html

How to build an effective in-game advertising campain?

Some recommandations to make your in-game ads efficient:

• Understand the gamers: their knowledge, their expertise and their reasons for playing.
  


• Always look to enhance the gaming experience, not detract it. “70% of heavy gamers state that contextual ads make games more realistic.”(Nielsen Interactive Entertainment). The ads must enhance gamers to immerse further into the game.



• Brands and commercial content must be relevant to the game.



• Brands shoul feel like a natural part of the game



• don't interrupt your consumer gaming experience



• don't assume it's enough to run your outdoor or TV ads within the game



• Customization can strengthen gamers engagement with a brand: give gamers the opportunity to experience your brand virtually. EX: http://www.igaworldwide.com/advertisers/casestudies/bensherman/



• In game communication must be measurable

DON'T:

Mc Donalds and Coke in a Zombie game.......relevant?!!!!


See more on recommandations:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8489.asp
http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/recommendationsforadvertisers.html

In-game advertising efficiency

One of the problems raised by many advertisers is that in-game advertising is difficult to measure.

Regarding the cost of advertising, for static advertising it is measured function of the forecast sales and average hours playing the whole game. For dynamic advertising, agencies use a 10 second of cumulative exposure during the game as a metric.

As in-game advertisng is a very adaptable medium, costs of campains can go from 50000€ to 300000€ and even to 1 million euros for integrated camapins.


DIGA campaigns - Monitoring and tracking (Source: IAB UK)

The gaming agencies have software that uses IP addresses for geo-targeting of in-game adverts. This also allows a unique user number to be generated locally which can recognise a gamer when he or she next appears online. Advertising can be targeted by date, time of day and frequency (it can also be frequency-capped to provide weekly reach). They are able to record the time that each ad impression takes places, what type of content the advertising was (for example a billboard or video stream) the duration the ad was seen for, the size of the ad relative to the player and the angle that the advert is being viewed at (angle of deflection). They then provide a report to their clients showing the results of the ads served including the reach of the campaign.

Until DIGA became a reality it had been difficult to reach mass audiences with in-game advertising. This is no longer the case as gaming agencies can now place ads in multiple games just as traditional outdoor media owners can provide a variety of poster sites.

DIGA facilitates high reach campaigns that connect brands with an engaged audience and is a targeted, accountable and measurable medium. The reporting metrics and general reach have put the in-game advertising industry in a strong position for the future. However, until more UK research is carried out and a common currency is agreed within the industry, advertisers may act with caution when considering adding in-game advertising to their media plan, despite being very keen to understand how they can benefit from this sector. With a continuing build up of research and the introduction of a standard buying model used by the industry to trade in-game advertising, the medium will, in time, see even greater growth possibilities.

“The single biggest hurdle for mainstream acceptance of the medium at this stage is the necessary research to prove the effectiveness and value of the sector, something each of the stakeholders is working hard to address having learnt valuable lessons from similar issues with the painful initial gestation of online. The issue of metrics standardisation across networks may be harder to solve, however with the market only ever to likely support a maximum of three substantial vendors globally, even this may not prove insurmountable.” - ED Bartlett – IGA

DIGA: Dynamic in-game advertising
See more on: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/tradingandmonitoring.html

Agencies also published some reports about advertising efficiency, see the links below:
http://www.massiveincorporated.com/casestudiesa.html
http://www.doublefusion.com/advertisers/html/research.html
http://advertising.microsoft.com/research/jeep-gaming-case-study


quote:Jennifer McLean at Double Fusion comments that: “In-game advertising combines the branding power of television with the levels of accountability and measurability that advertisers are used to from the Internet. If a brand invests in a 30-second placement, it is guaranteed the ad will be seen on screen for that period of time, a commitment no other medium provides its customers.”

In-game advertising: who is "in the game"?

Basically, there are three different players in the world of in game advertising: advertisers, agencies and publishers.

When advertisers want to lauch an in-game advertising campain, they go through agencies that have relations with publishers.

Three big agencies exist in this field: IGA worldwide, Massive(Microsoft) and Double fusion.
http://www.igaworldwide.com/
http://www.massiveincorporated.com/index.html
http://www.doublefusion.com/

Masssive describes in its Website 5 steps a company must follow to launch a campain:
http://www.massiveincorporated.com/howtobuymassive.html

Each agency has special links with certain publishers. They can target the consumer you want choosing a specific game that correspond to specific gamers. Thanks to dynamic advertising you can also target according to geography and enven demographics and gamers habits.
For example, with the X-Box 360 live, gamers play on-line and all their game parties are record in their profile.

Classic outdoor ads, videos, audio can be directly adpat to video games.

Some basic definitions of in-game advertising

Next step for studying in-game advertising, as I was a total novice in this field, I needed some key definitions and find those one quite relevant.

Video Game Advertising Key Definitions. Source: e marketer

Video game advertising spending – Total spending by marketers on in-game advertising and advergames.

In-game advertising – Advertising within and around the game space on PC-, console- and Web-based games. This category includes static ads, dynamic ads, product placements, game portal display ads and sponsored sessions; it does not include advergames or mobile games. Spending on in-game advertising is broken down into two sub-categories:

-PC- and console-based – Advertising within the game space on PC- and console-based games, whether they are played online or offline.

-Web-based – Advertising within and around the game space on Web-based games, which range from browser-based casual games to massively multiplayer online games.

Advergames – Video games created as a marketing tool, usually with brand awareness as the central objective.

Static in-game advertising – Advertising inserted into a video game during the game’s development cycle. Examples include virtual billboards and product placements. These ads cannot be altered once the game is published.

Dynamic in-game advertising – Advertising embedded into a video game using software codes that can be accessed online by the advertiser after the game is published. This allows advertisers and game publishers to customize ads “on the fly” in response to player characteristics such as geography, demographics and the time period.

More about static vs dynamic on IAB UK:

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/introductiontoingameadvertising.html

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/formatsofingameadvertising.html

examples of static, dynamic, 2D, 3D, interactive in-game ads

http://www.massiveincorporated.com/adtypesandspecs.html

The market is more and more shifting from static ads to dynamic ads because it can be adatped, it's interactive and up-to date.

Why should marketers be interested in in-game advertising?

As part of one of my courses I am taking in my MBA, I'm studying in game advertising. Well, for me who never play games and who is a complete novice I wanted to find some key factors that could give marketers and advertisers an interest in knowing more about it.

-As marketers, I am sure you have already been in this particularly difficult position of launching a marketing campain with a lower and lower budget. Advertising world is going a bit sick those days as "cost reduction" is being the mantra of most companies. So, marketers have to be more and more creative to find a effective way to advertise their product without spending a lot of money.

-TV, radio, internet, press: all those media are suffering advertising clutter. It's more and more difficult to get people attention. On the contrary, in game advertising is still in the development phase and can even give your brand total exclusivity.

-Video games is a huge industry and is expecting to grow amazingly in the coming years.

9 games were sold every second every day in 2007. (e marketer)

Youn men play 12.5 hours videogames a week compared to 9.8 hours watching TV (Nielsen Interactive entertainement)

The best seller game "Halo 3" took more revenue in its firt day of sales than the biggest opening weekend ever fo a movie (spider man 3) and the final Harry Potter book's first day sales. (e marketer)

-Video gaming offers the opportunity to connect your brand with traditionally difficult-to-reach young affluent males (18-34 years). You are now able to reach them while they are actively engaged with the medium.

Still skeptical?
Wait for the coming posts on the subject!......

TO BE CONTINUED......

http://electronlibre.info/L-in-game-advertising-ou-comment,091
(article in French about how to reduce cost in advertising in games)

customisation

In the trend of "customisation" of products those days, here are two examples very interersting:

Oakley custom eyewear:
http://oakley.ca/custom
design your own Oakley and buy them from 150$!

NikeiD
http://nikeid.nike.com/nikeid/?sitesrc=FRLP#home
design your own Nike and buy them from 95$!

Not only those interactive outlets add sales to the brands but it is an amazing source of information about customers preferences. In my opinion, this represents a new genaration for marketing. Customers are now designing, creating their own product. Interactive, virtual outlets offer amazing opportunities for brands which have enough money to support the huge logistics behind it.

just for pleasure: coca cola polar bears

As I was looking for the happiness factory ads, I rewied those ads I loved from Coke. I may definitly be in the targeted consumers....

enjoy!!!

with the dancing pinguins!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB3JLKfmq-M&feature=related

the carousel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sz56mtQB1M&feature=related

babies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUvwbz1K5Sg&feature=related

winter lights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G7iROMSyqo&feature=related

moon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0LJCEYYNjo&feature=related

seal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZIuzyfE1Qg&feature=related

well, actually I discovered some of those! It seems like a good idea they had, there are so many different and all adaptated around the world. Looks like a global brand......

hapiness factory: the fabulous integrated marketing campain

here is a extraordinary example of an integrated marketing campain made by coke. here is the first ad: (French)

http://www.journaldunet.com/ebusiness/publicite/analyse/071221-campagne-coca-happiness-factory2/2.shtml

Coke is using a platform on the internet then to gather targeted consumers (12-19 years) with teasers of the movie, games, goodies.

A real integration between TV, mobile, cinema and internet advertising.

results in France: 450, 000 visitors on the website in 6 days (normal average is 1 million per month) , 200,000 videos completly seen, and a silver lion in Cannes!

The campain was developed for all countries but was a bit adapted depending on tergeted consumers (a bit older in US for example).

web link: http://www.coca-cola.fr/home.do#Happiness_Factory

What if the future of advertising was mobile advertising?

Mobiles…everywhere, at any time, in every country…what a perfect medium for advertising! Well…not so simple actually. Most studies tend to show that interactive mobile advertising is becoming a huge medium of communication. However, today there are still some problems due for the most part to intermediaries the marketers must deal with.
With mobile advertising, the possibilities of targeting consumers are in theory huge. The problem is: how can we have access to personal data? Mobile advertising also tends to show a great rate of consumer response, it’s an effective direct marketing tool.

Just for a basic review of interactive mobile advertising, Here is a summary of a report from the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) from July 2007: "A mobile Advertising overview"

IAB platform status report


A mobile advertising overview

This report was edited by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in July 2008. It focuses on the emerging platform that mobile represents for interactive advertising. It argues that mobile communication devices will become the next great advertising medium because it is instant gratification, when you want and where you want.
This article will answer the following questions:
-What is mobile advertising?
-What does the ecosystem look like?
-How can marketers reach the mobile consumer?
-What does the future hold?



Market Review

The article provides a brief review of the mobile market today. About the market size, in the US, 84% of the mobiles were wirelessly connected at the end of 2007, and thus represented potential target for interactive advertising.
As regard the target consumers, the article stresses that companies must not focus only on the younger generation. For example, 85% of US mobile users between 30 and 49 years old have already use mobile data service being then an audience for advertising.

Market segmentation: the three faces of mobile:
The most interesting segmentation shown in this article was the different profile of consumers according to the type of mobile they have. This way, we can divide the consumers in 3 groups:

Mobile pioneers. 15%

-Use very often advanced features
-Majority<35 years old
-Tends to be male and single

Mobile Wannabes. 25%

-Have tried some advanced features
-Interested in using more of them
-Less then half under 35 years old

Mobile Traditionalists. 60%

-Use mobile just for phone calls and text messages
-2/3 over 35 years old

Consumers habits:
The authors argue that consumers use mobile interactivity for one of two main reasons:
1: To save time
2: To fill time

As a consequence, marketers must adapt their communication depending on those two types of use. For example, it’s seems obvious that the consumer who tries to fill time will be more open to entertainment an advertising. He may even expect it.

The article then focuses on mobile display advertising and divides it in two forms:

-On device Mobile display advertising: comparable to the ads we have on PC internet such as banners, text, video etc.. They can be interactive and demanding a direct response.

-Off device Mobile display advertising: is directly link to off line advertising and demand an interactive and measurable call-to-action. For example text messaging could be asked as a direct response to a TV ad.
This represents a huge opportunity for marketers. Because not only is it interactive and ask for a direct response but it is also much more personalized and customized that any other channel. It’s a new way to think about direct marketing.

Why should we use this channel for an advertising campaign?

As we’ve seen before, mobile advertising shows much more direct response that classical internet ad. For that reason, marketers should take advantage of that medium to make direct marketing campaign and aiming one of the following:
-Collecting personal data
-Driving calls to a call centre
-Driving click through to an informational page
-Delivering coupons
-Fielding surveys
-Offering a store locator

Mobile is also a good medium to build brand awareness thanks to simple banners (animated or static, interactive or not), text or videos (most important growth rate expected in the coming years). Of course, marketers and designers have to keep in mind the very special format of mobile phones. Communication tools have to be adapted to be effective.

Where should we use mobile display ads?

-Dominant context: browser pages. The particular advantage of mobile is that there is no clutter so the ad has much more impact if the mobile creative has been thought separately from the rest of interactive media
-Games: banners during the game or interstitials shown
-Downloadable applications
-Push publishing environment (for media properties that have their own phone resident application)
-Passive display (screen saver)
-P2P messaging (in text messages for example)

How to target consumers?

For the time being, it’s quite difficult to target precisely the consumers due to the important number of intermediaries. However, mobile advertising can offer in the future the best targeting practice of all media. It is thus a very important challenge to find out a way to access the data of consumers. For the moment, marketers can target based on handset, by carrier, geographically.
They can also ask special agencies or go directly thought intermediaries (see Nokia link in the post)


Opportunities

The article sheds light on three opportunities that marketers should consider:

Þ Drive response and brand relationship
Þ Deliver more personally and locationally targeted messages
Þ Gain early experience in a rapidly expanding market

Here are also some interesting links showing what we can do thanks to mobile advertising:

Nokia Interactive Advertising:
http://advertising.nokia.com/about
Nokia has developed its own agency for mobile advertising, proposing marketers solutions for mobile campaigns. You can find on this web site some interesting case studies of companies around the world using this service.

Mobile advertising: The next Big thing The Economist, Oct 2007
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9912455
An article from the Economist dealing with the huge potential of mobile advertising.

Volvo: mobile advertising in their show rooms
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=MipLlLzzrgE&feature=related
Another application of mobile advertising. Volvo is using wireless in their showroom for sending information and interactive ads to their visitors.

Using Bluetooth for “spaming” mobile users in the streets
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=lSufHbsBe98&feature=related


It seems like gaining early experience in this medium of communication could give companies a real competitive advantage. At the time of advertising clutter in the Internet, mobile advertising can be an important opportunity not to miss.....

Enough of boring ads on bus!!!

You are planning a new poster campain? It's amazing things we can do now with printed ads and big stickers. Look at this video that shows some creative ideas on how to advertise on buses and on plastic bags. It's time to think about a new area in advertising, people are so bored by the classical ads.....

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=QvJoc8oEays

For shure it will cost you much more money than a classical one, and it demands a huge organisation but still....it's worth it.

Many luxury brands are using those types of visual effect in their boutique windows. They are always pushing advertising agencies and printers to find new ideas.

To be considered......

new Citroën C4 ad, robot is turning disco....

As I have told in my post about parodies of ad, there is a new ad for the Citroën C4 again with the robot. It is a remix of staying alive, the robot is dancing on the streets of NY.

here is the link:

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=8XNIS05InZY

Was it a good idea to use the robot again? I'm not shure... The first ads had such success that from my point of view, this new one can only destroy the good communication they have built before.

This is a question that advertising people should ask themselves when building a campain. Until which point can we use again and again the same message? Even if it had worked well before, it doesn't mean that each time you are going to use it, it's going to make a buzz.

Moreover, in this particular example, the robot has totally changed, he has becaome too "human" from my point of view. I'm shure the creative people who designed it had a lot of fun with it but I'm wondering if they have really thought about what people have liked about the previous one.

Mr robot has lost is "soul"......and the ad has lost its power.

design your own bottle of Coke

Here is a quick link to the website of Coca Cola US. It's an interactive tool with wich you can design your own bottle of coke. There are lots of different possibilities and it's quite funny. This is a good way for Coke to understand consumer "visual" preference and try to think about how they represent a bottle of coke. And this can be done for quite a lot of products.

http://www.coca-cola.com/template1/index.jsp?locale=en_US&site=../olympics/index.jsp

buzz marketing with parody of ads

I found on YouTube some interesting and really funny videos wich are parodies of adds.
I want to share in particular the enormous buzz marketing that has created the brand Citroën (French car manufacturer) with its serie "Robot" for the Citoën C4. The principle is always the same for the 3 ads: the Citroën C4 transforms itself in a robot.
Here are the 3 ads made by Citroën since 2004:

"Dancer":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ckJFNkra8

"Skater"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhtGBaEOEVs&feature=related

"Runner"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPWpe4dXUfU&feature=related

Citroën has amazing results in terms of brand image after this campaign.

So now, this is a parody of the "Dancer" with and old Citroën 2CV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXOJ28b6WIo&feature=related

And here is a parody of the Dancer made by Chevrolet (hilarious....)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iia2B0Juy4E&NR=1


And if you have a look further you will see that there are many parodies of this advertising campaign on the Internet. It has created a real buzz.

And now I'm telling you a little "teaser" for next month....a new campaign is coming for the Citroën C4 in September/October and the robot is back with a new design created by a 3D artist in Vancouver! Watch out!

First one!!

Here I am! My first blog is now open...wow!