Tag archives: videogames

Videogames advertising: get ready

Do you want to reach young males? Advertise in videogames, that’s the best place to get their attention. The Seattle Post has a good article by Gary Gentile reporting on the recent E3 videogames trade show where it has become clear that the biggest players in the industry have discovered another revenue stream: the money payed by brands to have their logo placed in the games. Advertising is coming to videogames, and research firms are trying to adapt their methodologies and technologies to measure the players behavior. Of course in-game advertising is not for everybody, but big corporations with a lot of money to spend won’t loose the chance to impose their ads even there.

Read more…

File under: advertising, in-game ads, videogames

Product placement in online games

MUD, MMOG, videogames, there are a lot of new places where you can place your ads on. Online video game advertising hasn’t just come in the form of product placements, says Tessa Wegert on ClickZ, analysing the opportunities for advertising offered by the entertainment industry. If you want to reach young male consumers, product placement in videogames is what you need. Let’s just hope these actions won’t lower the games quality has it is happening in the movie industry…

File under: online gaming, product placement, videogames

Mobile war games?

Mobliss and Tribal DDB Worldwide have teamed up to create, implement and manage a wireless text messaging promotion for the United States Air Force. As explained in the press release, the promotion, which launches on May 29th and is expected to last through June, will involve a trivia game, called Air Force Snap Decisions. The trivia game will be available to wireless subscribers at three different events in conjunction with The United States Air Force “Cross Into the Blue” (CITB) Tour. I don’t know what to say about this initiative. It’s a good sign that mobile marketing is becoming relevant in the US but, at the same time, I’m disconcerted by the fact that the army wants to entertain and engage its audience. I can’t ignore my pacifist soul. To read more about videogames and war, check out “War Gaming“, by Thomas Mucha, on Business 2.0.

File under: sms, trivia game, us air force, videogames, war

Marketing and videogames

The combination games + marketing is hot online with advergames, in the wireless world with wireless advergames, and offline, with videogames product placement. In the recent years product placement has invaded Hollywood, and now is ready to massively land on videogames. GameSpot published last week an article about marketing and games, talking to Ubisoft’s director of media and promotions, Jill Steinberg who said:

“Varied, layered marketing tactics-from the Internet to contests-are the goal for many consumer-brand companies. The true success of marketing tie-ins in the near future hinges on more than just featuring the product in the game.”

As in the movies, I believe the point is to build a campaign around a game and not a game concept around a product. Advertising money has a lot of power but not necessarily this power is able to help the industry growing from a quality point of view.

File under: advertising, marketing, videogames

Videogames and advertising

Tom Hespos wrote yesterday about advergame, maybe not exactly about advergames but, more in general, about the potentials of videogames for advertisers. He comes up with a new perspective on the matter, which I believe is rather interesting. He takes the issue a step further, not considering only advergames and product placement (remember Intel and the Sims?), but suggests brands to think about full game sponsorships. In his excellent analysis, Tom says:

“While some marketers are paying game developers for product placement, I haven’t seen anyone completely underwrite the cost of a game and distribute it at no- or low-cost to end users.”

File under: advergames, big brands, product placement, videogames