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Study Finds In-Game Ads Work
A study conducted by Nielsen and Activision has concluded that in-game advertising works on the traditional gamer demographic. From the eToyChest article: "The study was conducted among 1350 active male gamers ages 13 to 44. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of nine test or control cells. Respondents who were assigned to four game test cells, featuring the games MTX Motortrax, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Need For Speed Underground 2 and NHL 2K6, were then exposed to brands and products at various levels of integration and pervasiveness within each game. Participants assigned to two game control cells played the same games without any products integrated or placed in the game. According the study, it confirms earlier findings that product integration helps to drive awareness and recall, but also uncovers a new variable, pervasiveness, which contributes to driving brand awareness as well."
What I find interesting about this study is that it suggests that product placement -- putting brand names into situations where you would expect them to be in the context of the game world -- is effective. Movies and TV have been doing this for years. Remember how every cell phone in The Matrix was Nokia, or the extreme close-up on the Dr. Pepper can when Peter Parker was practicing web shooting in Spider-Man? (And those are relatively recent.)
By immersing the ads into the gameplay, rather than flashing an advertisement on the side of the screen, the ads simply become part of the atmosphere rather than a punch-the-monkey level annoyance.
I'd still prefer fewer advertisements in things I'm already paying for -- commercials in movie theaters, previews on DVDs, etc. -- but integrated ads aren't nearly as bad as some of the alternatives.
...if a game company that likes money and wants people to pay them for ads says it's true...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
In other news, Spyware also increases sales and brand awareness. It's still a scummy thing to do.
How objective is this study? Isn't this reminiscent of Microsoft backed studies claiming that Windows is the best solution? Food for thought.
"in-game advertising works on the traditional gamer demographic. From the eToyChest article: "The study was conducted among 1350 active male gamers ages 13 to 44.""
What advertising doesn't work on males ages 13 to 44? Success of advertising to that demographic is a big reason why it's such a target demographic.
I knew it, he's a script! *kicks himself for not knowing earlier*
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
I would hazard that the positive response is driven in part by the novelty of in-game ads. I know the first time I saw one in planetside, I stared at it for a bit, to check it out. I suspect this will turn into annoying "background noise" soon enough, and will become as [in]effective as any other form of advertising once the "new car smell" wears off.
Studies show that commissioned studies tend to show results that the commissioning party wanted to see as the results.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Whenever I read about studies of which advertising method is more effective than such-and-such, I can't help but remember that day my parents dropped me off at a place doing market research so they could shop or something. (*at the time I was pissed that my sister got dropped off at the booth that was trying out new flavors of teddy grahams)
Now, I couldnt have been more than.. well, I barely know how old I am now, so let's make up the age "six" and pretend I just mean to say "quite young".
I was shown a few ads for things like Slip'n Slide or Nerf or one of those products whose name recognition is currently high enough for me to throw them out as random though probably wildly inaccurate examples.
They showed me all the ads at once, then came in to ask me questions about them. Questions like "did you like the toy in the first ad? Do you think it would be fun? And the second ad? Did you like that one?"
I was "six". I can see now that the people doing this research couldnt possibly have been familiar with this demographic, as at the time I was quite incapable of remembering any but the most recent brightly-colored moving whatever which was placed in front of me, let alone what happened fourteen commercials ago. Of course, this may have been their goal all along.
And this is why I have no trust in market research.
More to the point, actually asking someone how they felt about something is a pretty crappy way of getting their opinion of advertising. If they wanted a good sampling of how the advertising effected people (with the note that this is still wildly bad/wrong/inaccurate as the first exposure to advertising for any product leaves very little impression, especially immediately afterwards), they should have thrown a free gaming session and provided refreshments. Still ask them what they thought about the ads as far as whether they'd actually pay for a game that they had to pay for every time they played by viewing ads goes, but get your actual data about effectiveness of adds from which refreshments they chose.
Oh no! His post seems like an opinion but he didnt explicitely state it!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Anyone else notice that all the test games were sports games? Situations where there is rampant advertising in their real-life equivalents? It's not like product placement isn't expected in those situations.
How long has blatant product placement been going on? The earliest I can remember is the box of Cherios in Superman. Anybody know of earlier examples, or if maybe there's a list online?
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
I'm not thrilled about in-game advertising, but what WOULD thrill me is the increase in 100% sponsored games. Anarchy Online has adopted this model. You Don't Know Jack Online used this model in its heyday. I'd be glad to endure some ads if it meant I could play a good game for free. The better the game, the less annoyed I'd be with ads. In fact, if the ads are done tastefully, I'd seek those brands out just because they were paying for my video games.
I waited months for my secret decoder ring.
D-R-I-N-K M-O-R-E O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E
Bastards.
For $55, there should be a way to turn off in-game ads. I mean, for the love of God, $55 is already ridiculous.
(Admittedly, I also thought it was a crappy game for many other reasons...in-game ads was just one of the nits further down the list).
Advice: on VPS providers
These games are hardly suited for judging people's acceptance of in-game ads. If I'm playing Tony Hawk's, I obviously expect them to wear clothes from real brands, and have brand-name skateboards. Likewise, I expect real cars and real tuning brands in games like Need for Speed, and I'm not bothered by billboards in sports games because there are billboards in real sport events, too.
That does not mean that I want to see a coke sign or a Nike ad in a game which is based on a fictional universe.
Soon you'll get tired with in-game ads just the same as with the real-world ones. The novelty will end and the effectiveness will drop just to the standard low margins of all ads.
You, Americans, were brought up in the world of commercials. I lived through fall of "communism" in Poland, and back then there was almost no commercials. And completely no TV commercials. When the first ones showed up on TV, it was all the craze. Everyone was buying the cockroach killer stickers, even if you had no cockroaches, just because it was on TV. Kids were crazy about the Kuku-Ruku candy bar, even if there were many better, tastier, cheaper ones in trade. But this one was in TV commercials. TV commercials were new and cool.
Then they got boring and started to really piss people off. Just to the degree they do now.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I wanted to try Red Bull after seeing ads for it in WipeOut XL back in 1996. Took me ages to find some.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The company selling the adverts, and a company who people will pay to tell them if the ads are working both say the advertising works. Gee, who woulda thunk it?
It was okay with me in Project Gotham Racing when there were ads on the screens in Times Square, because that fit the setting. But when I was playing the second level of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory the other day, in-game advertising just pissed me off. The level is a cargo ship controlled by terrorists in the middle of the ocean, and it's a dark and rainy night. Quite atmospheric. And right there at the beginning of the level, on the sides of the crates, are HUGE FUCKING INTEL GAMING ADVERTISEMENTS. They're seriously about 3 times as large as your character in the game, and there's two identical ads right next to each other. That pulled me right out of the atmosphere of the game, because I couldn't stop thinking about how I wanted to punch the head of Ubisoft in the face. I immediately uninstalled the game, took the disc out of the drive, took a big dump on it, lit it on fire, drove my car to a nearby river, and threw the flaming, shitty DVD-ROM out the window into to the flowing water. Besides, AMD processors are better for gaming anyway.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1