2008 Predictions: Getting Your Game On

Posted by Heidi Skinner / January 5, 2008 9:08 am 

While most marketers weren’t the first in line to try new marketing platforms in 2007, we’ll begin to see more brands involved in new channels next year. Consumer adoption and turn key solutions will drive marketers into new spaces.

Keep your eye on console gaming in 2008. PS3 and Wii are transforming the tone deaf into guitar heroes and the couch potatoes into tennis pros. Video games can now be used to build brands, as opposed to distraction from game play. Connected consoles create more opportunities for dynamic in-game advertising, where ad placements can be updated with new campaigns and advertisers. It also allows advertisers to commit to a particular title closer to release date, or even after a game is in stores.

Both casual and hard-core gamers alike can be engaged with brands for extended amounts of time with a lower cost per interaction than many other emerging platforms. Console game sales figures are forecasted to push household penetration to 50% in the coming months. 2008 will be a great time to get involved, as the costs are not over-inflated (yet), and the games are not cluttered with interactive advertising.

While I don’t think there will be a lot of stand-alone branded games this year; integration opportunities will be abundant – it’s just up to the marketers to make sure the brand presence enhances the gamers’ experience, and not detract from it.

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  • http://criticalmass.com Tim Schavitz

    I wouldn’t necessarily stop at integrated advertising in the games themselves. Xbox Live has opened many new outlets for advertisers, whether it’s downloading movie trailers or displaying simple banner-style ads in the Xbox Live interface.

    The Playstation 3 is also going to release an online presence called Home – while details are still sketchy, I wouldn’t be surprised to see opportunities for brands to make their presence felt.

    Advergaming has taken a new spin as well. Doritos launched a contest last year to create a Doritos-based game to be distributed through Xbox Live. Users submitted ideas, the finalists were featured in webisodes (available on Xbox Live), beta versions of the finalists’ games were available to the public, and users voted on their favorite. The game is currently under development and will be a free download later this year. You can find out more details about the game at http://unlockxbox.com

  • http://www.BandwidthCamp.com Duane Brown

    Couldn’t agree with you guys more. Gaming is becoming more of a marketing channel. A lot of the last year was in-game ads and advergames, which some think are the same but aren’t.

    I recently wrote about the last year and in-game ads. http://www.bandwidthcamp.com/2008/01/09/video-game-advertising-a-year-in-review/

    I think the next year will see a bigger move to in-game ads that ad an ARG component to them. Either way it’s going to be a good year.

  • http://danielhonigman.com Daniel

    It’s funny when you think about it; getting an ad in Madden, for example, could actually become the interactive equivalent of getting a 30-second spot during the Superbowl. Exciting times!

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