Thursday, December 08, 2005
Advertising Where They Are
Regular readers of this blog have been subjected to my recent thoughts (rants?) on how we'll reach the next generation of b2b buyers, who haven't grown up with the traditional media reference points that we (er, older folks) have.
These future buyers play video games as much to socialize and network as to cast spells and shoot digital bad guys. Their virtual worlds are as real as a trade show floor--if not more real, and probably more satisfying.
Marketers, of course, have noticed, and have begun to experiment with in-game advertising as this piece from the Boston Globe attests (Via IWantMedia). There's a good reason:
A study...concludes that people who view advertisements in video games have better brand recall, and in some cases are more likely to favorably change their opinion about a brand, than consumers who view television product placements.
The always-excellent GameDailyBiz offers some interesting analysis:
...the best in-game ads are there to enhance the realism of an already realistic experience. As game makers strive to further blur the lines between their created fictional world and the real world, advertising has become a bit of a stumbling block. Real-world cities are filled with advertising messages, so an ad-free virtual city can actually take gamers out of the immersive experience. Creating fake logos for fake companies has an equally jarring effect.
but
DoubleFusion founder and Executive Vice President Guy Bendov told GameDAILY BIZ in October that the extra care that must be taken to ensure the ads are an enriching experience is exactly what makes them more effective, in the end.
"I believe the response to in-game ads has been so much more positive than the response to advertising in other mediums because it doesn't interrupt or delay the experience," Bendov said. "In television for example, advertising stops the show. In-game ads are more like product placement on TV, which isn't seen in the negative light that commercials are."
Side note: As I prepare for my media-anthropology study of my nephew over the Christmas holiday, I was pleased to see that Jason Calacanis' blog empire has added a new channel focused on World of Warcraft. I'm trying to read up so that I don't come off as such a doofus to my nephew as he previews his media world for me.
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These future buyers play video games as much to socialize and network as to cast spells and shoot digital bad guys. Their virtual worlds are as real as a trade show floor--if not more real, and probably more satisfying.
Marketers, of course, have noticed, and have begun to experiment with in-game advertising as this piece from the Boston Globe attests (Via IWantMedia). There's a good reason:
A study...concludes that people who view advertisements in video games have better brand recall, and in some cases are more likely to favorably change their opinion about a brand, than consumers who view television product placements.
The always-excellent GameDailyBiz offers some interesting analysis:
...the best in-game ads are there to enhance the realism of an already realistic experience. As game makers strive to further blur the lines between their created fictional world and the real world, advertising has become a bit of a stumbling block. Real-world cities are filled with advertising messages, so an ad-free virtual city can actually take gamers out of the immersive experience. Creating fake logos for fake companies has an equally jarring effect.
but
DoubleFusion founder and Executive Vice President Guy Bendov told GameDAILY BIZ in October that the extra care that must be taken to ensure the ads are an enriching experience is exactly what makes them more effective, in the end.
"I believe the response to in-game ads has been so much more positive than the response to advertising in other mediums because it doesn't interrupt or delay the experience," Bendov said. "In television for example, advertising stops the show. In-game ads are more like product placement on TV, which isn't seen in the negative light that commercials are."
Side note: As I prepare for my media-anthropology study of my nephew over the Christmas holiday, I was pleased to see that Jason Calacanis' blog empire has added a new channel focused on World of Warcraft. I'm trying to read up so that I don't come off as such a doofus to my nephew as he previews his media world for me.
