In-Game Advertising

This past week I watched my friends play Army of Two on their PlayStation. As I sat there watching, I couldn't help but to desire to go to the featured Chinese zoo from the game. Then I started to wonder how effect is in-game marketing. Research has shown in-game ads increased purchase intent, brand recommendation, brand rating and engagement metrics all across the board according to the company Initiative and Avenue Razorfish’s 2010 Outlook Report.

“Apart from increasing brand awareness and purchase intent, in-game ads trigger users to more readily engage with sponsored media. According to 85 studies from Microsoft’s in-game ad serving company for PC and Xbox 360 called Massive, in-game ads were found to increase purchase intent by 24%, brand recommendation by 23% and overall brand rating by 32%, (Khan, 2010).”

From the results of in-game advertising, it is easy to see why companies are shelling out the big bucks to be featured in games. "Even President Obama campaign will begin running ads across multiple video game titles from Electronic Arts, including the new Madden NFL 13 and in mobile games like Tetris. According to Dave Madden, EA’s svp of global media solutions, the strategy paid off for team Obama. Based on surveys conducted by EA during the 2008 ad effort, gamers were 120 percent more likely to feel positively about the candidate and 50 percent more likely to consider voting for him after seeing the in-game ads, (Obama, 2012)."

With how effective in-game marketing is, I am wondering how long it will be before gamers protest all the ads and marketing done through games.

Work Cited

Obama Taps Video Games for Early Voting | Adweek. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/obama-taps-video-games-early-voting-143717

Khan, A. (2010, 05 26). A brief look at in-game advertising. . Retrieved from http://socialtimes.com/a-brief-look-at-in-game-advertising_b13631