Advergaming: Advertising through video games
Advergaming: Advertising through video games - The practice of using video games to promote a particular product or an organization is known as "Advergaming". Wired magazine first used this term in a column to describe the commissioning of free online games by large companies, in 2001. There are three categories of Advergaming: ATL Advergaming, BTL Advergaming and TTL Advergaming.
ATL Advergaming can be vaguely explained as a promotional video game. The business incorporates interactive video games on their website so as to create more awareness about their product among the website visitors. This method is also used to attract more visitors to the site and to increase the traffic flow on the website. If the games are made for product advertising, the product is highlighted in the game.
ATL Advergaming can be vaguely explained as a promotional video game. The business incorporates interactive video games on their website so as to create more awareness about their product among the website visitors. This method is also used to attract more visitors to the site and to increase the traffic flow on the website. If the games are made for product advertising, the product is highlighted in the game.
Advergaming: Advertising through video games
Before the invention of the internet, floppy disks and later compact disks were used as a medium to promote games and in turn a particular product. It started with floppy disk basically to create awareness as well as product promotion. The first Advergame was distributed by American Home Food, which was developed by Chef Boyardee. Taco Bell and Coca Cola followed it by giving customers floppy disks containing promotional games. The first Advergame to be distributed on compact disk was by Chex and General Mill. The graphics of these games have matured from arcade style flash to three-dimensional.
BTL Advergaming comprises of recruitment tools like In-game advertising, militiamen and edutainment. Usually the mascot of the particular company is depicted as the hero in such games. Pepsi man and Burger man were the mascots used in promotional games designed by Pepsi and Burger King respectively. The storyline of these games can be commercial, educational or political like the game American Army created to attract more youth towards devoting their life to army and also games meant to promote sports like Formula One racing are also a part of this technique.
In-game advertising is more commercial type and is purely targeted for promotion of the product via the game. This is really picking up and even movies are promoted by this method. Like on the website of the movie, The Mummy, there are games which have a storyline similar to the movie and the player is given knowledge of the facts about the movie and its subject, Egyptian Mummy. Educational Advergaming refers to games that portray a moral message to the players.
These games can also act as a medium of advertisement themselves like in the video game of EA Sports; banners of Pepsi line the frame of the game. By using this strategy the companies are able to provide low price or free games to the consumers. This is also effective in reducing the price of games that have a monthly fee.
TTL Advergaming or through the line Advergaming is the most rare form of Advergaming. URL links are embedded into a game that takes the players to the web pages, which has BTL Advergaming. Different methods are used to attract the player to a particular webpage. In the game " Enter the Matrix" URL hyperlinks are depicted in the background, which the player is forced to click to learn about the facts relating to the plot of the next level and at the same time advertises about the product. The curiosity to learn about the theme of the game attracts the player, although it might not be necessary to click to finish the game. Such kinds of games are usually known as link-chases as one link will lead to another. Website visitors are sometimes tempted with a prize to prompt them to click the URL.
This technique of advertising is really beneficial as it not only creates awareness among the player but also among his friends who lands the website upon friend's suggestion. The success of Advergaming is dependant on word of mouth and thus is also known as viral marketing. In the year 2004, this industry generated around $83.6 million and involved 105 million players.
BTL Advergaming comprises of recruitment tools like In-game advertising, militiamen and edutainment. Usually the mascot of the particular company is depicted as the hero in such games. Pepsi man and Burger man were the mascots used in promotional games designed by Pepsi and Burger King respectively. The storyline of these games can be commercial, educational or political like the game American Army created to attract more youth towards devoting their life to army and also games meant to promote sports like Formula One racing are also a part of this technique.
In-game advertising is more commercial type and is purely targeted for promotion of the product via the game. This is really picking up and even movies are promoted by this method. Like on the website of the movie, The Mummy, there are games which have a storyline similar to the movie and the player is given knowledge of the facts about the movie and its subject, Egyptian Mummy. Educational Advergaming refers to games that portray a moral message to the players.
These games can also act as a medium of advertisement themselves like in the video game of EA Sports; banners of Pepsi line the frame of the game. By using this strategy the companies are able to provide low price or free games to the consumers. This is also effective in reducing the price of games that have a monthly fee.
TTL Advergaming or through the line Advergaming is the most rare form of Advergaming. URL links are embedded into a game that takes the players to the web pages, which has BTL Advergaming. Different methods are used to attract the player to a particular webpage. In the game " Enter the Matrix" URL hyperlinks are depicted in the background, which the player is forced to click to learn about the facts relating to the plot of the next level and at the same time advertises about the product. The curiosity to learn about the theme of the game attracts the player, although it might not be necessary to click to finish the game. Such kinds of games are usually known as link-chases as one link will lead to another. Website visitors are sometimes tempted with a prize to prompt them to click the URL.
This technique of advertising is really beneficial as it not only creates awareness among the player but also among his friends who lands the website upon friend's suggestion. The success of Advergaming is dependant on word of mouth and thus is also known as viral marketing. In the year 2004, this industry generated around $83.6 million and involved 105 million players.
What makes video games so popular? Simply put, video games let you escape your everyday life woes, but what makes them different from other forms of entertainment is that they're immersive. You get to live through an avatar, gain the rewards and rack up out of this world achievements.
…the very best advergaming is actually a playable, interactive game that happens to include promotional messages.
Video games are designed to keep you in that sweet spot between happiness, frustration and progressive skill development. You just want to keep playing and playing. So, naturally, hardly anything would be more frustrating than advertisements plastered all over the screen, annoying promotional pop-ups or full-screen video commercials interrupting your gaming flow. That's why you might think that marketing and video games don't mix well. Yet advergaming exists and is very much alive.
But there's a catch. These aren't just your average ads. They're more subtle than that, and the very best advergaming is actually a playable, interactive game that happens to include promotional messages.
As playable advertisements, advergames promote a brand, raise awareness and spread its message. From a marketing point of view, they're a powerful tool to attract, engage and keep your customers.
The difference between gamification and advergaming
Gamification is the combination of marketing strategies with classic gaming techniques to keep you engaged with the brand or product. When you compete with your friends for Foursquare Mayorships, collect points for My Starbucks Rewards or play McDonald's Monopoly, you've been lured in by gamification.
Advergaming might sound similar, but it's not the same. It means developing an actual game for the purpose of marketing. There are three main types of advergames:
1) Advertising inserted into an existing game
Have you played Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U? Did you notice how you can race with Mercedes cars in the game? That's product placement right there. Back in the 90s, the rising wave of popularity of video games had advertisers salivating over all the possibilities to place brands and products in your favourite video games. What followed were games like Zool, a platformer where an alien ninja ant fights its way through a sweet world of candy — sponsored by ChupaChups — and Cool Spot, which had players jumping and running around…with the 7-Up mascot.
2) Full games for desktop computers, consoles, or mobile devices
The restaurant chain Chipotle released a free iOS game called The Scarecrow in 2013. Marketed as an enticing game in which the player breaks up a monopoly, it not-so-subtly promoted the company's values. Regardless, The Scarecrow was a huge hit with fans. Players downloaded the game more than 250,000 times in just four days.
3) Games on a company's website
You might think of these as branded mini games, which you'll find on sites like Candystand. But successful advergames on the web go beyond throwing together a bit of flash animation. Ubisoft's video game Watch Dogs is set in a dystopian future where players hack cameras and mobile phones. To promote the game, Ubisoft produced the website WeAreData*, which offers infographics and real-time visuals of geo-data from Paris, London and Berlin.
* The website no longer seems to be live, but you can watch a video that talks about the campaign here.
The benefits of advergaming
Advergames use the interactive and social components of games to the advantage of a brand. Here are some of the main benefits they offer to brands:
Raise brand awareness: You play games in your free time, and a player's levels of attention are high when they're playing a video game. You can harness that power with subtle placements of your brand and product. A custom advergame can tell a story about your company in an unobtrusive yet engaging way.
Positive brand interaction: When done right, advergaming continuously and effectively exposes the brand to the player in a way that is neither aggressive nor invasive. Instead, playing creates a positive experience associated with the brand.
Followers: Advergames can help build true fans who are potential leads and can convert to loyal customers. The marketing feels less intrusive, because it is up to the players to choose when they play and interact with the brand.
Promotional opportunities: Don't stuff your advergame with sales and offers – any overkill can turn off gamers. Yet there are subtle ways to add in just the right level of promotions and rewards (like discounts or coupons) into games.
Data and research: Games are an alternate reality and offer you nearly ideal circumstances to test drive new products and ideas. Marketing strategies that wouldn't work offline can work well in advergames. You can use things like sign-ups, sharing and polls to collect valuable data from players.
Good games go viral: Advergames can make it really simple for the players to talk about the game (and the brand) on social media. Games often have shortcuts so players can do things like share scoreboards, show off achievements and compete with friends online. Players spread the word for you when they like your game.
Great reach through games: You think video games are just for boys? Think again. Today, the average gamer's age is 30, and 45% of them are female. The gaming industry is raking in over $100 billion per year, and roughly 20% of the market share falls to mobile and social games. The wide-reaching marketplace offers you great potential to reach your target audience.
By the way, do you need T-shirts for a marketing campaign? Advergaming or not? ? Printsome's apparel-printing services are perfect for making souvenirs, merchandise and staff uniforms, among many other possibilities. Visit our website to find out more.
How to use advergaming as a small business
But wait, you say, isn't it expensive to produce a video game? Big brands have big bucks to throw at advergames, but how can small businesses compete with that?
The answer lies in technology, namely in HTML5. You can design and build highly complex games with beautiful interfaces in HTML5 at an affordable cost, making it perfect for companies with a leaner marketing budget. HTML5 offers you the following advantages:
Inclusive: Web-based games only require a web browser and work on any platform, mobile device or desktop computer.
Instant play: Playing in the browser requires no app or software download and installation.
Ease of publication: No need to wait for Apple or Google to approve your app. You simply publish on your website!
Promotion: App promotion is expensive, but to promote your website game, you can use your existing and developed marketing channels and the website itself.
Sharing: To share your game, players only have to copy and paste the URL. Social media, email, chat – it works a thousand ways. Instant win!
Data: You don't have to measure data on different channels. On your own website, you implement the tracking, monitoring and analyses you want to evaluate the performance of your advergaming campaign.
Standards: Adopting HTML5 is widely encouraged across the web, especially with the focus on mobile. In fact, Microsoft and Google use advergames of their own to promote HTML5 – and their own browsers Edge and Chrome. Microsoft's Rethink experiences let you play The Settlers of Catan in Catan anytime and Assassin's Creed Pirates. Google publishes a slew games of their own, including The LEGO Game Build with Chrome as part of their Chrome Experiments.
Examples of advergaming
This game, starring the now retired Pepsi mascot Pepsiman (clever!), was a platformer released in Japan for the original Playstation in 1999. It was a title that was destined to remain in obscurity, but thanks to YouTube it has gained a cult following in recent years because, you know, this is the internet so why not. The gameplay is average at best, and it has become famous for its bizarre plot, bad graphics (even for the time), being frustratingly difficult to play and — being weird, just plain weird.
M&Ms video games
M&Ms jumped on the advergaming trend in 2000, and since then they've released six different games for different platforms (like Wii, PlayStation and Nintendo DS). They feature playable M&Ms who you have to take through different types of adventures. They also had a clever idea – they included math problems and puzzles in the game to teach kids math skills.
FIFA Football
This football-themed video game has been popular pretty much since it was released in 1993. Not only does it have lots of branding for the different football divisions around the world, but it's also got tons of ads for brands. Coca-Cola, Sony and Visa are just a few of the brands you might see in their games. A lot of the advertising is incorporated subtly in places that their players are already trained to see ads in football matches. That means it doesn't seem invasive or odd, but the message still gets across.
Chex Quest
PC Gamer deemed this the 'most successful advergame ever', and it's got a solid fan of followers online, even though the game is over 20 years old at this point. Using a spork, you try to shoot the evil, slimy Flemoids and transport them to another place. The game was passed out in boxes of its cereal, so they didn't have to try to convince their customers to buy a game separately. They gave it out and got them hooked. By the way, Chex Quest is so popular that a high-definition remake is in the works.
Burger King
Burger King has also been behind some of the most popular advergaming titles in history. They created three games for Xbox that you could get with the purchase of a value meal for an extra $3.99. They were so popular in fact that they ended up being 2006's best-selling video games during the holiday season. Rather than having revolutionary gameplay and graphics, Burger King's games were just fun. They had a touch of humour and simple yet engaging gameplay. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to have a decent video game.
…the very best advergaming is actually a playable, interactive game that happens to include promotional messages.
Video games are designed to keep you in that sweet spot between happiness, frustration and progressive skill development. You just want to keep playing and playing. So, naturally, hardly anything would be more frustrating than advertisements plastered all over the screen, annoying promotional pop-ups or full-screen video commercials interrupting your gaming flow. That's why you might think that marketing and video games don't mix well. Yet advergaming exists and is very much alive.
But there's a catch. These aren't just your average ads. They're more subtle than that, and the very best advergaming is actually a playable, interactive game that happens to include promotional messages.
As playable advertisements, advergames promote a brand, raise awareness and spread its message. From a marketing point of view, they're a powerful tool to attract, engage and keep your customers.
The difference between gamification and advergaming
Gamification is the combination of marketing strategies with classic gaming techniques to keep you engaged with the brand or product. When you compete with your friends for Foursquare Mayorships, collect points for My Starbucks Rewards or play McDonald's Monopoly, you've been lured in by gamification.
Advergaming might sound similar, but it's not the same. It means developing an actual game for the purpose of marketing. There are three main types of advergames:
1) Advertising inserted into an existing game
Have you played Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U? Did you notice how you can race with Mercedes cars in the game? That's product placement right there. Back in the 90s, the rising wave of popularity of video games had advertisers salivating over all the possibilities to place brands and products in your favourite video games. What followed were games like Zool, a platformer where an alien ninja ant fights its way through a sweet world of candy — sponsored by ChupaChups — and Cool Spot, which had players jumping and running around…with the 7-Up mascot.
2) Full games for desktop computers, consoles, or mobile devices
The restaurant chain Chipotle released a free iOS game called The Scarecrow in 2013. Marketed as an enticing game in which the player breaks up a monopoly, it not-so-subtly promoted the company's values. Regardless, The Scarecrow was a huge hit with fans. Players downloaded the game more than 250,000 times in just four days.
3) Games on a company's website
You might think of these as branded mini games, which you'll find on sites like Candystand. But successful advergames on the web go beyond throwing together a bit of flash animation. Ubisoft's video game Watch Dogs is set in a dystopian future where players hack cameras and mobile phones. To promote the game, Ubisoft produced the website WeAreData*, which offers infographics and real-time visuals of geo-data from Paris, London and Berlin.
* The website no longer seems to be live, but you can watch a video that talks about the campaign here.
The benefits of advergaming
Advergames use the interactive and social components of games to the advantage of a brand. Here are some of the main benefits they offer to brands:
Raise brand awareness: You play games in your free time, and a player's levels of attention are high when they're playing a video game. You can harness that power with subtle placements of your brand and product. A custom advergame can tell a story about your company in an unobtrusive yet engaging way.
Positive brand interaction: When done right, advergaming continuously and effectively exposes the brand to the player in a way that is neither aggressive nor invasive. Instead, playing creates a positive experience associated with the brand.
Followers: Advergames can help build true fans who are potential leads and can convert to loyal customers. The marketing feels less intrusive, because it is up to the players to choose when they play and interact with the brand.
Promotional opportunities: Don't stuff your advergame with sales and offers – any overkill can turn off gamers. Yet there are subtle ways to add in just the right level of promotions and rewards (like discounts or coupons) into games.
Data and research: Games are an alternate reality and offer you nearly ideal circumstances to test drive new products and ideas. Marketing strategies that wouldn't work offline can work well in advergames. You can use things like sign-ups, sharing and polls to collect valuable data from players.
Good games go viral: Advergames can make it really simple for the players to talk about the game (and the brand) on social media. Games often have shortcuts so players can do things like share scoreboards, show off achievements and compete with friends online. Players spread the word for you when they like your game.
Great reach through games: You think video games are just for boys? Think again. Today, the average gamer's age is 30, and 45% of them are female. The gaming industry is raking in over $100 billion per year, and roughly 20% of the market share falls to mobile and social games. The wide-reaching marketplace offers you great potential to reach your target audience.
By the way, do you need T-shirts for a marketing campaign? Advergaming or not? ? Printsome's apparel-printing services are perfect for making souvenirs, merchandise and staff uniforms, among many other possibilities. Visit our website to find out more.
How to use advergaming as a small business
But wait, you say, isn't it expensive to produce a video game? Big brands have big bucks to throw at advergames, but how can small businesses compete with that?
The answer lies in technology, namely in HTML5. You can design and build highly complex games with beautiful interfaces in HTML5 at an affordable cost, making it perfect for companies with a leaner marketing budget. HTML5 offers you the following advantages:
Inclusive: Web-based games only require a web browser and work on any platform, mobile device or desktop computer.
Instant play: Playing in the browser requires no app or software download and installation.
Ease of publication: No need to wait for Apple or Google to approve your app. You simply publish on your website!
Promotion: App promotion is expensive, but to promote your website game, you can use your existing and developed marketing channels and the website itself.
Sharing: To share your game, players only have to copy and paste the URL. Social media, email, chat – it works a thousand ways. Instant win!
Data: You don't have to measure data on different channels. On your own website, you implement the tracking, monitoring and analyses you want to evaluate the performance of your advergaming campaign.
Standards: Adopting HTML5 is widely encouraged across the web, especially with the focus on mobile. In fact, Microsoft and Google use advergames of their own to promote HTML5 – and their own browsers Edge and Chrome. Microsoft's Rethink experiences let you play The Settlers of Catan in Catan anytime and Assassin's Creed Pirates. Google publishes a slew games of their own, including The LEGO Game Build with Chrome as part of their Chrome Experiments.
Examples of advergaming
This game, starring the now retired Pepsi mascot Pepsiman (clever!), was a platformer released in Japan for the original Playstation in 1999. It was a title that was destined to remain in obscurity, but thanks to YouTube it has gained a cult following in recent years because, you know, this is the internet so why not. The gameplay is average at best, and it has become famous for its bizarre plot, bad graphics (even for the time), being frustratingly difficult to play and — being weird, just plain weird.
M&Ms video games
M&Ms jumped on the advergaming trend in 2000, and since then they've released six different games for different platforms (like Wii, PlayStation and Nintendo DS). They feature playable M&Ms who you have to take through different types of adventures. They also had a clever idea – they included math problems and puzzles in the game to teach kids math skills.
FIFA Football
This football-themed video game has been popular pretty much since it was released in 1993. Not only does it have lots of branding for the different football divisions around the world, but it's also got tons of ads for brands. Coca-Cola, Sony and Visa are just a few of the brands you might see in their games. A lot of the advertising is incorporated subtly in places that their players are already trained to see ads in football matches. That means it doesn't seem invasive or odd, but the message still gets across.
Chex Quest
PC Gamer deemed this the 'most successful advergame ever', and it's got a solid fan of followers online, even though the game is over 20 years old at this point. Using a spork, you try to shoot the evil, slimy Flemoids and transport them to another place. The game was passed out in boxes of its cereal, so they didn't have to try to convince their customers to buy a game separately. They gave it out and got them hooked. By the way, Chex Quest is so popular that a high-definition remake is in the works.
Burger King
Burger King has also been behind some of the most popular advergaming titles in history. They created three games for Xbox that you could get with the purchase of a value meal for an extra $3.99. They were so popular in fact that they ended up being 2006's best-selling video games during the holiday season. Rather than having revolutionary gameplay and graphics, Burger King's games were just fun. They had a touch of humour and simple yet engaging gameplay. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to have a decent video game.
Advergames: advertising via video games
recent studies show that less than 1% of internet surfers pay "significant" attention to banner ads, and that new pop-up and pop-under ads "annoy and infuriate many web users." since "the internet has not proved to be an effective branding tool" (pat keane, a senior analyst at jupiter media metrix), more and more companies are turning to "advergames," (usually) easy games that work well over dial-up connections, don't require special gaming hardware (like a joystick), and hawk everything from cars to movies to dandruff shampoo. most current advergames are driving games where players use a keyboard's arrow buttons to drive around a track plastered with real ads in a vehicle that is often an ad itself. advergames are often viral as well, encouraging players to e-mail copies to friends.
advergames are popular with companies and marketers because they're apparently quite effective. consumers playing an advergame get much more exposure to the ad(s), not just "a fleeting message" they might get from looking at a banner ad, skyscraper or otherwise. 8 of the top 10 entertainment sites on the 'net are devoted to gaming and idc expects 40 million households to be playing online games in 2004. plus, gamers tend to be in "the core demographics that influence broad consumer brands." for instance, toyota's "adrenaline" racing advergame was on msn gaming zone last year and the results were very positive: most players played three or four times a month for about 20 minutes each time, and toyota brand awareness went from #6 to #2 within three months of adrenaline's introduction. advergames can also familiarize consumers with more technical innovations that might not be conveyed well by conventional advertising means. for instance, general motors put out "gm emotion challenge" to help consumers understand the "new high-tech control system … that affects the engines and transmissions in some of its latest vehicles." advergames can also be part of larger advertising campaigns (e.g., tv ads hawking the game and the game hawking the tv ads), and players' choices of vehicle makes, models, and colors can give companies good consumer preference data. most of all, however, games "are natural marketing tools because they are deeply immersive and create a sense of event around a brand." (david madden of wild tangent, a company that has made several advergames for big companies.)
companies that have used advergames (e.g., ford, gm, radio shack, sony, procter & gamble) say that consumers have reacted positively so far. and while not all of the advergames are designed to saturate the player with products and brand names and messages, critics are already reacting against them. industry watchers say that advergames "may more easily slip under parents' radar and overexpose unsuspecting young people to commercial messages," invading yet another part of our lives and presenting the opportunity for subliminal encouragement of consumerism and materialism.
for much more information, please see the new york times.
sam's opinion
i haven't seen any of these advergames (i'm not a big internet gamer), but the concept makes total sense to me. many companies have dedicated staff whose mission is to get the company's products into movies ("product placement"). advergames are part of the same concept, though companies have much more direct control over the "placement" medium. advergame designers can be subtle (e.g., ads along the race course) or go over the top: the nyt article talks about procter & gamble's mission refresh, "an online game in which players help captain cool eradicate dandruff creatures with bubbles and bottles of the company's head & shoulders shampoo." it sounds horrendous to me, but the company said that many consumers even sent in positive e-mails about the game (although you can't really trust companies to tell you the truth about anything). this points out what a great idea it is to use gaming's "fun" connotation for more nefarious purposes.
despite my reaction to mission refresh, i look at advergames the same way i look at radio and tv commercials (and shows): if you don't want to pay attention, you don't have to play the game (or listen to the radio or watch the tv). there are so many driving games out there that don't bombard me with ads that if i felt the need to play one i wouldn't feel compelled to download "gm emotion challenge," say.
recent studies show that less than 1% of internet surfers pay "significant" attention to banner ads, and that new pop-up and pop-under ads "annoy and infuriate many web users." since "the internet has not proved to be an effective branding tool" (pat keane, a senior analyst at jupiter media metrix), more and more companies are turning to "advergames," (usually) easy games that work well over dial-up connections, don't require special gaming hardware (like a joystick), and hawk everything from cars to movies to dandruff shampoo. most current advergames are driving games where players use a keyboard's arrow buttons to drive around a track plastered with real ads in a vehicle that is often an ad itself. advergames are often viral as well, encouraging players to e-mail copies to friends.
advergames are popular with companies and marketers because they're apparently quite effective. consumers playing an advergame get much more exposure to the ad(s), not just "a fleeting message" they might get from looking at a banner ad, skyscraper or otherwise. 8 of the top 10 entertainment sites on the 'net are devoted to gaming and idc expects 40 million households to be playing online games in 2004. plus, gamers tend to be in "the core demographics that influence broad consumer brands." for instance, toyota's "adrenaline" racing advergame was on msn gaming zone last year and the results were very positive: most players played three or four times a month for about 20 minutes each time, and toyota brand awareness went from #6 to #2 within three months of adrenaline's introduction. advergames can also familiarize consumers with more technical innovations that might not be conveyed well by conventional advertising means. for instance, general motors put out "gm emotion challenge" to help consumers understand the "new high-tech control system … that affects the engines and transmissions in some of its latest vehicles." advergames can also be part of larger advertising campaigns (e.g., tv ads hawking the game and the game hawking the tv ads), and players' choices of vehicle makes, models, and colors can give companies good consumer preference data. most of all, however, games "are natural marketing tools because they are deeply immersive and create a sense of event around a brand." (david madden of wild tangent, a company that has made several advergames for big companies.)
companies that have used advergames (e.g., ford, gm, radio shack, sony, procter & gamble) say that consumers have reacted positively so far. and while not all of the advergames are designed to saturate the player with products and brand names and messages, critics are already reacting against them. industry watchers say that advergames "may more easily slip under parents' radar and overexpose unsuspecting young people to commercial messages," invading yet another part of our lives and presenting the opportunity for subliminal encouragement of consumerism and materialism.
for much more information, please see the new york times.
sam's opinion
i haven't seen any of these advergames (i'm not a big internet gamer), but the concept makes total sense to me. many companies have dedicated staff whose mission is to get the company's products into movies ("product placement"). advergames are part of the same concept, though companies have much more direct control over the "placement" medium. advergame designers can be subtle (e.g., ads along the race course) or go over the top: the nyt article talks about procter & gamble's mission refresh, "an online game in which players help captain cool eradicate dandruff creatures with bubbles and bottles of the company's head & shoulders shampoo." it sounds horrendous to me, but the company said that many consumers even sent in positive e-mails about the game (although you can't really trust companies to tell you the truth about anything). this points out what a great idea it is to use gaming's "fun" connotation for more nefarious purposes.
despite my reaction to mission refresh, i look at advergames the same way i look at radio and tv commercials (and shows): if you don't want to pay attention, you don't have to play the game (or listen to the radio or watch the tv). there are so many driving games out there that don't bombard me with ads that if i felt the need to play one i wouldn't feel compelled to download "gm emotion challenge," say.
0 Response to "Advergaming: Advertising through video games"
Post a Comment