Advergaming Today

Advergames Summary

2006-04-30T22:27:00.000-04:00

Over that last few weeks, I have been doing and in-depth study of the world of advergaming and the effects it has had on advertising. All of the research that I have done has pointed to the fact that advergames have made their way into advertising campaigns and are a seemingly effective new medium. Overall, advergames are cost effective, reach a specific audience, raise awareness, and act as a more unobtrusive form of advertising that today’s technologically savvy consumers actually enjoy interacting with. Advergames are certainly new to the advertising world; however, their success and credibility currently appears to be unstoppable. By adding advergames into campaigns to complement other forms of traditional promotions, companies can truly establish themselves in the customers’ minds. Soon companies will be choosing to use advergames much more often as part of their promotions and the industry will take off.

Advergames are video games that feature a product or an advertisement somewhere within the game; ultimately, the goal of using an advergame is to “improve the consumers brand perception and intent to purchase” (Well Here’s Your Alternative). Advergames come in all forms, just a few of which include pop up games, games on internet websites, and video games. Typically, when a company is deciding to make an advergame, they must choose which type they want for their product. The first type of advergame is associative games, which “support brand awareness through lifestyle association”. These games frequently include the brand or logo within the game as a background, small ad, or perhaps as a picture. The idea behind these types of advergames is to make the consumer associate a certain lifestyle or activity with the product. The second type of advergame is illustrative, where the advergame “prominently features the product itself in game play”. This would mean that the main character could be the product, or the entire plot of the advergame revolves around finding or doing something with the product. By using illustrative advergames, the player will more likely remember the product in the game since it was such a prominent part. The third type of advergame is demonstrative, which “boost messaging effectiveness by presenting the product in its natural context and inviting the consumer to interact with it”. This type of advergame allows a consumer to use the product and fully understand its capabilities prior to actually purchasing. When a company decides that an advergame will effectively help their campaign, it is very important to decide which type of advergame to use. (Types of Advergames)

What truly makes advergames a unique new medium is their ability for consumers to interact with the products in a fun and engaging manner. The internet and video games capture a tremendous amount of attention from today’s youth, and not using these to their fullest extent would be a waste. Advergames are quite different from traditional media and even product placement because of the interactive quality. Since they can be found online, they also have potential for peer-to-peer marketing. Facts have shown 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. Then, 90% of those who receive an email challenge play the game and pass it back” (Well Here’s Your Alternative). These figures are impressive and support the viral marketing trends that advergames were meant to encourage.

Another unique feature of advergames is that they allow for extreme customization for companies. Some games require zip codes prior to play, which allows advertisers to put local advertisements into that player’s game. Surprisingly, this does not bother consumers, and some have even mentioned that they like the advertisements within the game because it gives it a more realistic feel. Even if consumers did not approve of the advertising, though, it would not make much of a difference; the only way to not be exposed to the advertisements would be to stop playing their game, which is not what they want to do. It seems that advergames tend to work because they are such an integral part of the game; players are engaging in the game and they do not stop to think about the fact that advertisements are all around them. To them, it is just a game and the ads make it more like real life.

Even though advergames may seem to be just regular games to consumers, they are actually well thought out and carefully analyzed to make sure that what the game is about coincides with the company’s image. For instance, Oscar Mayer made games geared towards children and a fun, easy lifestyle; they understood that hotdogs are something that children encourage their parents to buy, thus the game was geared towards the kids. However, Orbitz had a basketball advergame that encouraged adults to play so that they could enter to win a free vacation. This not only appealed to the adult market, but also reinforced Orbitz’s product. Another advergame that tuned into their consumer quite well was Gap with their striptease advergame. They were aware of their spunky, fashionable, and a bit naughty target group. What they wanted was a game that was funny, and it worked perfectly; the pass along rate for that particular advergame was phenomenal. These advergames have proven that this new medium, when used correctly, can be a great advertising tool.

However, one drawback that I found concerning advergames was the amount of time and effort it took to actually play the game. Normally when I would click on a game to play it, there would be a loading period and it also would make me install new software so that it would run properly. This certainly presents a problem for companies because attention span on the Internet is extremely limited. If someone is just searching the web and they stumble upon a game that they think might be fun, they are not going to waste 5 minutes clicking to get to the actual page, find that they need new software, and then actually take time to install it unless they are extremely motivated to play. With this in mind, it would be much more helpful for companies to be consumer-conscious and realize they need to get the consumer to play, and do it fast. If not, they will surely lose interest and move on without a second thought.

When advergames actually do engage the audience, they act as a fabulous complement to traditional media. Currently, many campaigns include billboards that have short one-liners written on them. Someone drives by the billboard, reads it and drives on; later that night, they see a commercial on television that explains that one-liner in a 30-second ad and all of a sudden the commercial and billboard make sense. Advergames now want to join in this promotion, and they promise to be an effective addition. Since consumers are spending less and less time watching television, and more time on the internet, placing ads online allows for just another exposure to that campaign. Then when an advergame comes along, it not only provides exposure, but also is interactive and makes the customer engage in the product. By using advergames as one more component in the promotional campaign, it gives consumers more opportunities to see the product and be motivated to purchase it.

Many companies have begun using advergames, such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, Champs Sports, Jack Daniels, Gap, Taco Bell, Reebok, Clinique, Chef Boyardee, Citibank, Sony Electronics, Samsung, Toyota, Nike, General Motors, Disney, Honda, Microsoft, Ford, LG and Oakley. With such prominent companies now in the market for advergames, there have been an uprising of companies focused on creating them. The most well known companies in the market currently are WildTangent, Brandgames, Dreamam Ltd, Blackdot, and Fuel Games. All of these companies have created innovative games, which are right on track with the companies they work for and the audience they are appealing to. Most likely, there will be an increase in advergaming companies due to the high demand of effective games.

Advergames certainly appear to be where the advertising world is heading; it is becoming quite clear that traditional mediums are no longer as successful as they once were and a need for new, innovative advertising has surfaced. Since today’s culture revolves around the Internet and the need to be connected to one another, it seems like the perfect place to advertise. And better yet, the advertising can come in game form, which makes it more appealing and less obtrusive. Since advergames coincide with cultural demands and fit well as complements to other mediums, they are a spectacular use of advertising dollars in this ever-changing world.

Integrating Advergames

2006-04-29T15:51:00.000-04:00

The key to any successful advertising campaign is to ensure that every part is integrated, which reinforces the overall concept that the campaign is trying to convey. What makes advergames such a good fit into most marketing mixes today is the fact that they coincide well with other mediums. Just as a campaign can include a billboard with a short slogan and then develop the same idea in a fuller manner by transitioning it to a television advertisement, advergames can work the same way.

Advergames work well with many other promotions, and various companies have discovered this useful fact. For instance, Electronic Arts recently developed “Arena Football” and players will see “Champs Sports at every touchdown, punt and pass. The retailer's logo is everywhere, from the virtual athletes' helmets to the end zone, pumping its "Where sport lives" tagline”. However, the promotions involving Electronic Arts’ game and Champs Sports do not end there. The companies work hand in hand to make sure that each of their media mixes work well together, creating profitable results for both. In Champs Sports stores, “employees will be given copies of EA Sports games as sales incentives, in-store monitors will show EA game highlights, and kiosks will allow shoppers to play "Arena Football" and win Champs merchandise”. This tremendous amount of co-promotion is helpful to both companies and truly makes shopping at Champs Stores a more entertaining and enlightening experience. Consumers can watch and play games that feature advertisements, which in turn may influence more spending, awareness, and perhaps loyalty.

Now that advergames are becoming vital parts of promotional campaigns, advertisers are willing to spend more money investing in their creation. For Advergames in particular, “Nielsen Entertainment projects that ad spending will jump from $75 million in 2005 to upwards of $800 million by the end of the decade”. This figure is quite impressive and clearly means that companies believe that advergames work well. By continuing to integrate them into campaigns, sales for many businesses could certainly improve dramatically.

http://ezproxy.ithaca.edu:2055/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&an=19701188

Movies Are Getting In The Game

2006-04-26T19:39:00.000-04:00

Advergames certainly seem to be a great way to bridge the gap between product and consumer, and now even movie companies have started to get in the game. When movies such as Chicken Little, Bewitched, The Chronicles of Narnia, and King Kong were released, promotions for the movies included advergames.

An article in Daily Variety explained this recent trend of movies using advergames as promotional tools on the official sites of each movie. They were deemed a cost effective way, not to increase sales, but to increase word of mouth. According to Daily Variety, “they cost $100,000 or less to produce,” and that is significantly cheaper than paying for advertising in a videogame for a console.

What companies are struggling with the most is the realization that an entertaining advergame may be fun, but fun does not necessarily translate into an effective advertisement. The article gave the example of the extremely popular, and probably the most well-known advergame, which is American Army. Although the game supposedly serves as a recruitment tool for the U.S. Army, there have been no statistics gathered to prove whether it has worked or not. In the case of movies using advergames, Ian Bogost explained that “studio advergames only work if they teach you something fresh about a movie”.

This idea may be true, but even when this is put into practice there is no standard for measuring the results. Similarly to most other forms of advertising, the dollars go into campaigns and people watch the sales from there. Until a way of measuring the results of advertisements within each media is found, all companies can do is assume that what they did worked or did not work. Perhaps, though, a standardized measurement would reveal much more interesting information than direct correlations. And in this world of clutter and chaos, I am pretty sure that there is no such thing as a direct correlation between advertising and sales; there will always be other factors that influence people and their purchasing habits.

http://ezproxy.ithaca.edu:2074/universe/document?_m=f2180c974f444152f2f260474e6893e7&_docnum=3&wchp=dGLbVtb-zSkVb&_md5=ae84c4031c17fb52eb5df6bc4b190ed9

Types of Advergames

2006-03-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

There are a plentitude of advergames swimming around on the Internet today, so I thought it may be useful to discuss more specifically the different types available. According to Chen and Ringel (2001), brand messages can be made into advergames in three different ways: associative, illustrative, and demonstrative.

Associative advergames “support brand awareness through lifestyle association”. Games such as these are frequently found and essentially mean putting your product or logo into a game that a consumer would play as a background or subtle ad within the game. For instance, the example that they offer is Jack Daniel’s promotion of their beer through a 3D pool game. In this advergame, there are pictures of Jack Daniel’s advertisements on the walls in the room where the pool table is, and a prominent logo on the pool table itself. With associative advergames, the idea is to make the consumer associate the product with the lifestyle that is depicted in the game. In the Jack Daniel’s pool game “the choice of imprinting its logo on and around a pool table not only provided a natural setting for the advertisements but also appealed to the demographic they were targeting with the campaign”. This type of advergame is frequently found and it is a fantastic way of advertising. It allows the company to promote their product to the people who are most likely to be using it through a game that only shows the product as a background advertisement. It seems that many consumers like this kind of advergame because they are able to play a game online without being bombarded by advertisements all throughout the game (i.e. if the character in the game was the product, known as illustrative advergames).

The second type of advergames is illustrative, which is where the advergame “prominently features the product itself in game play”. The example that the Chen and Ringel article give of an illustrative advergame is General Mills’ Cinnamon Toast Crunch game featured on Nick.com. In this game, the objective is to find and collect Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which makes sure that the consumer remembers which product they just played a game for. Illustrative advergames seem to be geared specifically, but not exclusively, towards children. This can be drawn from the fact that when the product is the character, it is less believable and resembles a fantasy or make-believe world rather than the real one. It simply offers added appeal to a younger and more impressionable audience. However, there still is a strong argument for using illustrative advergames. “According to Sharon Cohen, VP of Ad Sales Marketing, ‘When the product is only incidental to game play, the likelihood of remembering the product is compromised’”.

The third type of advergame that Chen and Ringel discuss is demonstrative. These types of advergames “boost messaging effectiveness by presenting the product in its natural context and inviting the consumer to interact with it”. Demonstrative games are very useful in allowing a consumer to try out a product on the Internet prior to purchasing; hopefully this type of advergame will be one of the final steps leading to a customer buying a product. One example they give in their article is Nike Shox basketball shoe, which in the game is chosen by the consumer in the beginning of the advergame. Then throughout the game the consumer will be able to see the difference performance features of the shoe.

Associative, illustrative, and demonstrative are the three predominant types of advergames, as presented by Chen and Ringel in their article, “Can Advergaming be the Future of Interactive Advertising?”. Theses types certainly seem to categorize nearly all advergames on the Internet, and specific categories make it much easier for companies to decide which type is needed for their product.

http://www.locz.com.br/loczgames/advergames.pdf

http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~mm/socbytes/feb2002_i/9.html

POG and Then A ...Strip Tease?

2006-03-23T20:12:00.000-05:00

In an effort to play more advergames (I finally gave in and installed Macromedia Flash Player), I Googled “advergame” and looked at a few sites that were brought up. I found a company called Fuel Games, and was quite intrigued by the companies they have built games for. The advergames that they featured on their site varied depending upon target audiences as well as the complexity of the game. According to their website, “Fuel builds games around brands, and with average brand interaction times of up to 40 minutes/play, players are just as satisfied as our clients”. I have to agree that their games were quite addicting.

The first advergame that I played was POG, a game that I recall playing sprawled out on the classroom floor in Elementary School. Fuel Games took on the challenge that was presented to them by Funrise Toys, a company planning the North American relaunch of POG. The advergame found on the Internet certainly stays true to the original way of playing POG, but there are, of course, some updates. To begin with, the player customizes their person in the game, choosing gender, clothing styles, and designs on their “slammer” piece. Then they begin the tournament, where the goal is to throw your slammer on the pile of POGs. All POGs that land face up are awarded to that player. This is repeated, with alternating turns between the players, until the entire POG stack is gone and then each player counts their winnings. Throwing the “slammer” piece is the only thing that the player is able to do in the advergame version, and it is just a matter of stopping a moving circle in the area you want to throw. This game, even with its simplicity, is certainly entertaining and addicting.

After my fun adventure with POG, I moved on to Gap’s advergame: Watch Me Change. This title immediately jumped out at me because I just couldn’t believe that that was what I had actually read. I clicked on the game, and to my surprise, I wasn’t mistaken. I was given a choice between being male or female (I chose the latter) and then was presented with decisions regarding weight, chest size, age, and skin color. When clicking Next, it brought me to a page where I could change her eyes, eyebrows, nose, chin, and hair. The next step was to pick her outfit, which was made up of variations of t-shirts, tank tops, blazers, button-downs, jeans, and skirts. This brought me to the point where the girl went into the dressing room, came back out, and proceeded to dance and strip down to her bra and underwear. This was the entirety of the advergame, and I was amazed that Gap was affiliated with such a game. But sure enough, the challenge that Gap presented to Fuel Games was to “develop a website that would allow users to build models of themselves in 3D, dress those model in the seasons GAP fashions – and then send a virtual strip tease to their friends”. The crazy thing was that what they had created actually worked amazingly as a viral campaign. “A quick Google search will show you over 33,000 mentions of the campaign, and several significant publications made note of the buzz the site generated online. Additionally, the site was featured in multiple newspaper articles, including the Wall St. Journal and International Herald Tribune”.

These two advergames that I played were both very different than past advergames I have mentioned. POG was the actual game that it was advertising, and the Gap advergame gave the experience of shopping and trying on clothes at Gap, with an added twist! Both games were interesting, fun, and pretty addicting, so I suppose that these advergames worked quite well.

http://www.fuelgames.com/casestudies/

The Perfect Compliment

2006-03-22T12:45:00.000-05:00

A prominent question on the minds of advertisers today is how to most effectively spend their advertising budget. It is imperative for companies to create a media mix that works for their products and consumers so that they can have a successful business. It is always their hope that the advertising dollars they spend will work in their favor and influence customers to become loyal buyers.

Currently, there are numerous ways to allocate funds, both traditionally and in unconventional ways. Evidence has been pouring in to support the latter, though, because suddenly consumers are shifting their attention from newspapers, radio, and even television to the Internet. “ ‘People, on an average each day, spend two hours on television, 20 minutes on the print medium, four to five minutes on the radio and those who have access to the Internet spend 25 to 30 minutes surfing,’ said Mr. Sandip Tarkas, CEO, Media Direction (part of RK Swamy/BBDO)”. The statistic differs significantly when you narrow down “people” to a defined target, especially if the target is teens and college-aged men and women.

In this podcast from companies such as Yahoo and BusinessWeek Online discuss the growing trend of online advertising. It is becoming much more of a necessity in campaigns due to the idea that the younger generation, which many companies are targeting, spend more of their time on the Internet than with other mediums. Even if Internet advertising does not become the focus of a campaign, it can certainly become a fantastic way to compliment television, print, or radio advertisements.

There are many choices when deciding how to advertise online: banner ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, scrolling messages, and of course, advergames. All of these advertisements satisfy the need of making use of the Internet as a new medium, some are just more engaging than others. Put simply, when it comes time for a company to make decisions as to which mediums to use when advertising, they must consider their target and the current cultural trends. If focuses are shifting, the media mix should as well.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=916993341&sid=5&Fmt=3&clientId=12342&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Why Are Advergames Different?

2006-03-21T22:01:00.000-05:00

For most people, advertisements or commercials are a thing to avoid. No matter what the medium, consumers are rarely interested and often deem them to be annoying breaks between things meriting their attention. Advergames, however, seem to be a different story. Consumers do not view the games as intrusions as they do with traditional advertisements. In fact, when they play advergames, they have chosen to play. So what is it that makes advergames any different than standard advertisements?

The most important, as well as most obvious, difference is the fact that the consumer is engaged in a game. An advergame is meant to have the look and feel of a typical computer or videogame; the catch is that the advergame is equipped with embedded advertisements. When the consumer plays “Food Force”, they are playing a game constructed by the United Nations World Food Programme made to raise awareness about global hunger. “Players are cast as emergency aid workers who must pilot helicopters, negotiate with rebels and help to rebuild communities”. A player will be playing a game that doesn’t feature advertisements in the traditional form, but they are still being given information by a company. “America’s Army” is a similar advergame, taking the player through a “strikingly realistic war game, which covers basic training, tactical planning and a variety of missions”. The intention of this advergame is, of course, to promote the Army and encourage players to enlist by allowing them to get a taste of daily life in a fun and non-threatening way. A consumer will probably download the game and play it without ever realizing the fact that the game is nothing more than a disguised advertisement.

Numerous companies build their advergames in this manner; a consumer willingly plays a game designed to advertise to them without them paying attention to the advertisement. It seems almost counterintuitive since advertising is all about finding a way to force your intended consumer to focus on and remember your company. However, with that type of a traditional attitude, a company will produce a conventional advertisement and receive the normal result: uninterested customers who will do anything to ignore you. An advergame, in the eyes of a consumer is not seen as an advergame; rather it is merely a game. The advertisements are not as blatant because they come as characters in the game, or the car you drive in a racing game. In fact, when consumers do notice the advertisements, they comment that sports games in particular actually “look more realistic with real advertisement hoardings rather than generic ads for made-up products”.

“The popularity of many advergames suggests that gamers are evidently quite happy to put up with advertising in return for free entertainment”, and that is exactly the catch that allows both consumers and advertisers to be satisfied. When a customer buys, downloads, or just plays an advergame, an advertiser is successful. They have managed to engage the customer long enough to expose them to the product, and most often have left the player with positive connotations about the company.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdwebdid=853445351&sid=7&Fmt=3&clientId=12342&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Brandgames.. Advergaming Since 1995

2006-03-20T19:10:00.000-05:00

Many companies are now turning their attention to advergames in hopes of adding a new invigorating twist to their campaigns. Brandgames is a business designed specifically for creating advergames for young consumers on behalf of brands. Since 1995, the company has made advergames for many established brands, such as Pepsi, Taco Bell, Reebok, Gap, Clinique, Chef Boyardee, Citibank, and more. Their ingenuity is remarkable and has yielded great rewards over the past few years. In 2002, Adweek Icon Awards presented the company with“Gold” in Marketing Innovation for the work they created for Merrill Lynch. Other awards given to Brandgames include Corporate Image, Branding and Consumer Marketing (client: Reebok, and General Mills).

This company is quite dedicated to the brands that they are creating work for, and this is shown by their analysis prior to constructing anything. Brandgames defines their client’s problem first and then moves on to brainstorming solutions that will efficiently solve the dilemma. On the Brandgames website, www.brandgames.com, they feature their past work for an array of clients. When one clicks on a clients brand name, the business challenge that Brandgames faced is shown, along with their solution. Not only do they incorporate advergames into their solutions, but the company also specializes in commercial games (for Xbox, Playstation, CD-Rom, and Internet), and wireless games for cell phones.

Brandgames is a company who specifically targets consumer who grew up in the computer age, and clients who come to them are seeking these consumers. The games generally appeal to children, but they claim to make games for anyone who will play them. This company seems to have an amazing reputation with its range of clients as well as its helpful gaming solutions.

http://www.brandgames.com

When Does A Player Say "Oh, Just Forget It"

2006-03-19T17:39:00.001-05:00

Recently, I stumbled upon www.blackdot.com, a website for an innovative company that prides themselves on being “a dynamic and refreshing organization that delivers compelling design, value driven web development and unique new ways of doing business on the Internet”. Blackdot’s founders, Dan Ferguson and Michael Bielinski were said to have “developed the Advergaming concept in early 1998 and are considered by many to be the forefathers of this technology”.

With this new information, I decided that I would take a look at a few of Blackdot’s advergames that were found on their website. The company featured advergames for AT&T, Nokia, and TGI Friday’s, and boasted their previous advergaming hits Frogapult and Elf Bowling. However, my original intentions, both for playing the games and for this blog, were suddenly changed due to a few inconveniences along the way. Even if this was not what I wanted to discuss when I discovered Blackdot and their accomplishments, I think this may be a much more important issue.

What it was that I noticed prior to playing was the effort and commitment a consumer must have to actually get to the point where they are able to play the advergame. The first obstacle a consumer faces is that the links provided for the games rarely lead directly to a game. A player is required to click past two or three other web pages prior to getting to the game.

Following this, was what I found to be the biggest problem for the advergames: if the consumer does not already have the right software for the game, they must download it onto their computer. This requires time and a great deal of dedication on the player’s part. Most internet users probably are looking for a quick response and if the game does not appear immediately, they will lose interest and move on. Not only does the software take a considerable time to download, but it also left a message on my screen saying that in order to continue, I would have to allow the program to close my open browsers. What I found to be interesting was that even though I was extremely interested in the game, (both because I wanted to play it and because I wanted to write about it in this blog) I was not willing to proceed after that message came up. This made me think “If I am not even willing to go on, why would a regular consumer want to?”.

I think that these considerations sometimes are forgotten when a company decides to incorporate advergames into their campaigns. The advergame may indeed prove useful when consumers play, but perhaps they are investing money into something that only a small amount of consumers are willing to commit to. Obviously, advergames require specific software, but maybe with tweaking, the creators could make games compatible with software that most consumers already have. This adjustment might be just what is needed in order for significantly more consumers to play the games that companies feature on their websites.

http://www.blockdot.com/capabilities/advergames.html

Should Media Buyers Hesitate?

2006-03-14T19:22:00.000-05:00

With the emergence of advergames in advertising culture, many people have studied and commented on their success. Tessa Wegert, who is in media buying, wrote “Games Pop Up in Ads” in 2003 and brought up many valid points concerning this new type of advertisement that has many media buyers hesitant.

Wegert gives her readers the widely accepted purpose behind game pop-ups. She explains it is “to engage users with the advertiser's brand, build interest in the advertised product, and ultimately convert users into paying customers”. However, she notes that many advergames are only mildly related to the actual products that companies are selling. For example, the Orbitz advergame that I discussed in “Time to Play” revolved around dunking a basketball. The prize for dunking the ball was related to travel, which is what Orbitz sells, but the connection between the actual game and the trips that Orbitz sells to consumers is a bit obscure. Due to some advergames lack of focus on particular products, (which is certainly opposite of traditional advertisements focus) many media buyers are not convinced of advergames being the most appropriate way to spend advertising dollars.

Matthew Shapiro of Dreamam Ltd, which is an Israel-based advertising technology company, offers evidence that suggests advergaming is quite beneficial to companies. “The average click-through-rate on targeted gaming pop-ups created by Dreamam is 12 percent, with some ads reaching CTRs as high as 15 percent”. Not only are the CTRs for games that they created impressive, but Dreamam found that the conversion rates are also quite notable. When the company measured for the conversion rates for ads found in exit pop-ups, they were as high as 5 percent. Wegert commented, “Certainly any ad format can produce high conversion rates if the offer is good enough and the creative is effective. But given these games are generally delivered in pop-ups, a format notorious for producing high CTRs and low conversions, these statistics are a reassuring start”.

When Wegert wrote her article three years ago, advergames were just beginning on the scene and it was quite important to investigate the statistics surrounding them. What most researchers found was similar to that of Dreamam, and the rise of advergames started. Now it is still important to determine how effective advergames are before incorporating them into a company’s budget. With more data being found, media buyers are becoming more convinced of advergames’ usefulness, particularly if consumer loyalty is the result of their high CTRs and conversion rates.

http://www.clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/article.php/2235891

WildTangent: The Leading Provider of Advergames

2006-03-03T18:49:00.000-05:00

With advergaming becoming such a popular new medium, many people have realized the need for creating a company designed specifically for making online games. “Advertising in and around online games is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 25% from $77 million in 2002 to $230 million by 2007, according to Deloitte Corporate Finance”. WildTanget is a company that realized and has capitalized on the businesses that are looking to advertise through advergames. The company mentions on their website that they are currently “the leading provider of advertising through games solutions. WildTangent's advertising offering is comprised of 'In Game', 'Around Game', and 'Custom Game' campaigns”. Presently, their company has an impressive client list, which includes Sony Electronics, Samsung, Toyota, Nike, Coca Cola, Pepsi, General Motors, Disney, Honda, Microsoft, Ford, LG, and Oakley. So far, their clients have been pleased with both the games that WildTanget has produced, as well as the amount of consumer interest that the games have generated.

Julie Roehm, of Chryler/Dodge/Jeep Marketing expressed her satisfaction, saying, "Gaming is a fun and creative way to increase brand awareness, build brand loyalty and educate consumers on vehicle attributes. As we move forward with the launch of nine new products into the marketplace, gaming not only helps to generate excitement, it also amplifies customer anticipation". In July 2004, clients were not the only ones praising WildTanget’s advergames; one of their advergames for Coca Cola was featured in Mediaweek. The company is just rolling in the success that advergames are bringing to advertising. Executive vice president of WildTanget, Dave Madden, explains that advergaming works so well because both the player and the marketer benefit. “Consumers are being entertained, not marketed to. It’s the ultimate benevolent behavior marketing platform”. Perhaps it is time for other companies to follow WildTangent’s example and take advantage of the need industries have created for advergames.

http://wildtangent.com/default.asp?pageID=advertisers

http://www.wildtangent.com/downloads/MediaWeek_wtarticle_072004.pdf

Time to Play

2006-02-23T20:47:00.000-05:00

So after all of this reading about advergames, I decided I would get my feet wet and see if I thought they were as great as others have made advergames sound. Online advergames can be found in many different places, particularly on company websites so that consumers become more intrigued about the products and services they may already be interested in purchasing. Even though advergames seem like they may be targeted towards younger children, that just isn’t always the case. Companies add incentives for adults, and frankly, once they start playing, they realize that it is just a fun thing to do when surfing online.

The first of two websites that I looked at with advergames on it was from the Orbitz, which is a travel company. They had an advergame that said you could win free travel by playing Dunkin’ Mascots, where the customer simply has to dunk a basketball into a hoop and they are automatically entered to win. First, the player selects a mascot and then they begin the first round. It is easy to play: just hold the space bar to run, the up arrow to jump onto a trampoline, and basically your ball ends up in the hoop every time. Orbitz’s advergame is a great way to get the consumers interested in their company and it also helps the consumers remember Orbitz for future travel needs if they had a fun experience playing the game.

I also checked out Oscar Mayer’s website to see what kind of advergames their site featured and they had games where the consumer could drive the WIENERMOBILE around the town to pick up Oscar Mayer kids or Oscar Mayer brand products. Other games on the site include Weiner Pong, Learn to Play the Weiner Whistle, and Jingle Jukebox. All of these games, though they do not offer free products, prominently show the Oscar Mayer brand and its goods. Advergames such as these help to make the product that is shown in the games memorable for the consumer when they are making purchasing decisions. When the games resonate with customers, it may lead to brand loyalty and in turn more profits for the company.

The two advergame websites that I looked at definitely seemed to be accomplishing what advergames are supposed to: they showed the product, and made sure that the consumer was having an enjoyable experience while participating. As long as consumers actually visit websites of companies that have advergames, they seem like they will work as intended for the companies.

Advergaming: You Can't Just Change the Channel!

2006-02-23T19:32:00.000-05:00

It is amazing to look at the progression of advertising over the years, as it has been specialized and become much more involved. When companies first started to advertise their products and services decades ago, little attention was paid to needs of specific consumers. Today, however, the grueling process of researching target markets is rarely omitted from an advertising campaign. An analysis of everything from basic demographics, such as age and gender, to specifics, like how many minutes a day they spend watching television, is included when studying the consumers. Companies have become very aware of who they are selling their goods to, and what is necessary to gain their attention.

Advergaming certainly is not an exception to where this kind of research data can be applied. Just like any other medium used in an advertising campaign, solid information is first gathered about the consumer, and then it is interpreted and inserted appropriately within a videogame. The technology available in the videogame world, however, is far more impressive when it is used to its full capabilities. For example, the videogame RACE THE PROS incorporates local advertisements, based on the player’s zip code that they must enter to begin playing the game. “As the player's car speeds around the NASCAR track, Dodge updates the ads on the billboards, but not with just any promotion. Based on the zip code, Dodge inputs local advertising for the dealer nearest the player's home.” That is quite impressive!

This type of advertising opens doors to not only national companies, but also local businesses who will reach customers in their own neighborhood. When looked at it that way, placing the advertisements in the games seems like a similar alternative to television commercials. The difference, though, is pricing. Advergaming is a much cheaper medium to advertise in than traditional commercials on television. If an advertiser wants to create a custom game, most likely they will pay within $250,000 and $500,000, which is essentially the same amount they can pay for prime-time 30-spot on television. Creating an advergame allows for a much more interactive and appealing way to advertise to customers than commercials and it also offers greater exposure. It is commonly known within the advertising field that consumers have found ways to avoid commercials, whether they leave the room, change the channel, mute the volume, or snack on food. In advergames though, the advertisement is part of the game, and thus unavoidable. Now this doesn’t guarantee that the consumer will notice the promotion, but they definitely can’t just change the channel or leave the room when the ad flashes past on a billboard as they race around the track. Advergaming is a much easier way to expose customers to advertising since it is integrated into the actual game, and if research is done properly, this medium could yield great profits for companies.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=687495701&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientId=12342&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Just Product Placement?

2006-02-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

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.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=311243321&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientId=12342&RQT=309&VName=PQD

"Well, here's your alternative"

2006-02-16T18:22:00.000-05:00

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.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=117971008&sid=1&Fmt=4&amp;amp;amp;clientId=12342&RQT=309&VName=PQD

2006-02-16T16:49:00.000-05:00

Here Comes Advergames..

2006-02-12T20:18:00.000-05:00

For the duration of this semester I will be posting blogs in which I explore various topics relationg to advergaming. The concept of advergaming is relatively new and deserves the attention of those in the communications field. It certainly has the opportunity to become the newest wave of internet advertising and should not be ignored in the beginning of it's uprising.