Just Product Placement?

Advertisers today have quickly become more inclined to turn to advergaming as a way to reach out to consumers in a more subconscious manner. The idea of product placement has become well known and, though still influential, the public easily identifies this form of advertising and occasionally seems insulted by it. David Cohen, interactive media director at Universal McCann in New York commented that "the challenge is going from gratuitous product placement to something that's meaningful," which is exactly where advergames can enter the picture.

Advergames certainly seem to be a great alternative form of advertising: they are cheap, fast, and have an extraordinary peer-to-peer marketing ability. The options are also abundant, since a company could choose to do a game online or a console videogame, both of which can vary substantially still within those categories of games. Many companies have already ventured into the advergame arena, such as K-Mart, Hummer, Mini Cooper, Audi, Chevrolet, McDonalds, Intel, and DaimlerChrysler. Advertising within a videogame certainly allows for more exposures to the product than traditional ads because, according to Ellen Ratchye-- Foster, a trend analyst for Fallon, "anyone who buys these games devotes weeks and weeks to getting through their levels." This means that the consumer will see the advertisements over and over while they play, thus it may resonate with them. However, the downfall to advertising in a videogame as opposed to online games is that the process for developing games takes significantly longer.

I think that advergames are a fabulous new way of advertising to consumers. There is a tremendous amount of people who play videogames, according to the Interactive Digital Software Association, as many as 60% of Americans over age 6 play them. Putting that statistic together with the number of people using the internet, you have a phenomenal amount of people you can market to. It seems like it would be such a waste to not explore this area of advertising, particularly if people aren’t as offended or immune to it as traditional methods.



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