"Well, here's your alternative"

Welcome to 2006.. where our world is filled with people coming at you from every direction with advertisements and enticing promises to make you buy their product, good, or service. People watch television, but they don't see the commercials anymore. They flip through magazines and don't even glance at the double page ads. They change the station when the music stops on the radio; or better yet, they buy satellite radio so they don't even have to scan for the station playing music. The time has come when traditional mediums simply will not appeal to consumers. So what will do the trick? One thought is advergames.

Advergames are videogames that feature a product somewhere in the game. This can be done in many different ways, whether the videogame's main character is the product, the product plays some role in the game (possibly a reward or goal for a character is to obtain the product), or perhaps the product is simply shown somewhere within the game. No matter how the product is shown, ultimately the goal of an advertisement within a videogame is to "improve a consumer's brand perception and intent to purchase".

It is quite difficult to measure the success of an advergame, but statistics show that people do enjoy playing the games. YaYa LLC, a Los Angeles-based firm that produces and serves low-bandwidth, high-resolution advergames, has researched advergames and claim that "50% of consumers who receive a game through promotional email play it for some 25 minutes" and then they may forward the game to a friend. "90% of those who receive an email challenge play the game and pass it back". These statistics would suggest that many people who see advergames will play them, and will also influence others to play. Hopefully, the advergames actually will prove to be beneficial and the consumers will be influenced by the games to buy the products they see. Since videogames are a popular form of entertainment for many people, advertising within them may end up being a great alternative to traditional advertising.


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