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."

Comments

BRB

[PWill]

"Oh man, you're so dead. Right in my crosshairs!" "Oh shit!" "OOH! 2 Liter of Mountain Dew only $.50! BRB"

On the bright side...

[mattmacf]

In my experience, in-game ads haven't been terribly burdensome to look at, and in many cases they blend in reasonably well so as not to detract from the overall experience (TFA mentions NBA Live, where banner ads can even add to the realism as seen on TV). On the bright side, selling advertisements subsidizes the cost of the game for the consumer at the expense of the product being advertised. For those of you feeling smugly superior because you intentionally disregard the ads, congratulations, your game was made cheaper because of them.

Also, if you think about your comment for a moment, the idea that an advertisement costs the consumer twice is illogical. If the advertisements are avoided (and precious brainpower is consumed to NOT buy the product being marketed), the costs incurred by the marketing department AREN'T passed on to the consumer (who doesn't buy the product after all). If the consumer does buy the product, it's unlikely s/he spent a great deal of time avoiding the ad.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that advertisements aren't inherently good or bad. It's entirely possible that an advertisement made a consumer aware of a product that a producer was producing. It's possible that said consumer now enjoys a greater economic utility per dollar than with whatever alternative s/he was using prior to seeing the advertisement.

Finally, (and I think we /. folk seem to forget this) many people actually prefer the higher priced name brand product to the lesser known generic. Whether it be spiffier packaging, clever marketing, or simply the fact that "everyone else does it," many people make purchasing decisions on more than simply price/performance or whatever similar metric you care to devise. Believe it or not, something as simple as the container a beverage comes in can unconsciously affect the taste. Try serving cheap plastic bottle vodka in a handle of Grey Goose to your friends and see if they can tell the difference. (note: great for college parties!) Bonus points for swapping the good stuff into the plastic bottle and seeing whether its the beverage they prefer, or just the packaging. (For a much better perspective, check out the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. The Wikipedia entry doesn't do it justice, but the book is a great read.)

Re:On the bright side...

[DrSkwid]

I think you'll find that the price of a game is set by what the market will bear, not the cost of production.
So although the production costs are offset by the advertsing revenue, the saving is not passed directly on to the purchaser. Except to say that the availability of the game is perhaps made possible by the offset in prduction costs.

Advertisers will want to advertise in the the already successful franchise games such as the aforementioned PGR. How much different the game do you think the would be in both polish and price if it carried zero paid for advertising compared to whatever revenue it can generate through in-game ads? I would say zero.

Ergo, in-game advertising is a cost borne by the purchaser by having to experience them, not so bad in PGR but I find them quite annnoying in other games.

Re:Who would have thought...

[Shaper_pmp]

Exactly. When you watch TV you're passively receptive, so advertising works because you're already passive and receptive to being "told" messages and instructions - what's coming out of the TV is the object of the exercise

Computer games and the web are much more active, intellectual media - you're constantly deciding where you want to go and what you want to do, and a large part of successful game playing/web browsing consists of quickly and efficiently identifying the useful information presented to you, isolating it from the irrelevant information and ignoring the rest - the computer game or website is a method to achieve the object of the exercise, not the object of the exercise itself. And (as we all know), anything that interrupts you in your pursuit of an aim doesn't persuade you so much as irritate the living shit out of you.

TV advertising is aimed at people who are sitting there waiting to be told things.

In-game and online advertising is aimed at people who already know exactly where they want to go and what they want to do, and unless it's an essential part of their activity your advertising can and will be ignored and discarded as fast as the user can humanly process it.