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In Game Ads May Just Not Work
GigaGamez is reporting that the humorously-named Bunnyfoot research company (which specializes in behavior studies), has found that in-game ads just don't work. Some games which featured semi-stationary areas (like NBA Live) ended up with ads sticking in the minds of players. Games like Project Gotham Racing 3 ended up with the players having a 0% retention rate for ads that whizzed past. From the press release: "These results demonstrate a significantly poor level of engagement with consumers and exposed an apparent weakness within games to efficiently capture consumer attention. Despite following the model of real world sports advertising, current methods are not optimizing consumer engagement and are failing to influence the consumer in any significant way, the key driver for any marketing campaign and its validation. 'These results reflect the industry's concern relating to brand value and return on investment. Understanding consumer interaction at a deeper level of analysis allows us to measure the value of advertising investment' said Alison Walton, Head of Visual Engagement."
As a marketing d00d myself, clearly the message here is that the current models of in-game advertising are not effective enough. My firm is looking to increase the saturation of our in-game ads, and product placement is really taking off. I've been talking to several big names. Let's just say you'll be seeing a lot more of Tony Sinclair as a playable character in a variety of genres. For example, why leave your on-screen message display system unbranded, when instead you could have a simulated Nextel walkie-talkie on-screen for the whole game, complete with the signature beep sound whenever the player accomplishes a goal? We're also looking at putting watermark logos into the alpha channels of game textures. We've done some focus groups and the subtlety of these watermarks is very good, with a much higher impression rate than with "traditional" subliminal advertising. Really, the sky's the limit these days. Will these new methods be enough to crack the resistance gamers have to advertising? Only time will tell.