Digital Media Convergence: Advertising & Video Games, The Convergence of Two Worlds

The phenomenon of digital media convergence has been ever changing in recent years that there seems to be a rush to the centre for all emerging technologies. With the radical changes on old style media, it has been imperative that the old ways must now adapt to the new. Advertising being at the front of these changes has needed to change to find new ways in reaching resistant audiences that it has found new possible opportunities within a new growing medium, the video game.

Advertisers have started questioning the uncertain future when looking the performance of the old style media. With consumers having increasingly become distracted, distrustful and disinterested, they have started looking for new and innovative ways to once again reengage them (Spurgeon 2008). In contrast video games has been an industry that has been constantly growing but has only recently really exploded with success with the rise of the multifunctional mobile devices. The iphone being a great example of technological convergence at work from being a once simple phone to a full multimedia portable platform. However with the huge phenomenal success, advertisers have yet to truly harness the power of the mobile phone and as one spectator put it (Wilken & Sinclair 2009) it is

"a mass medium waiting for the kiss of life"

('Mobile Marketing Pitfalls' 2006 in Wilken & Sinclair 2009 p. 428)

Growth & Opportunity

With a recent research study by Nielsen it has become clear that video games have become a dominant force with being the number one ranked category of most popular used app among Smartphone customers (Neilsen 2011). Alot of this success is due to the casual game which has become a much more social and easily accessible genre. Another benefit is the fact that unlike other more traditional full production video games, they are much more cheaper and less time consuming. It is no surprise then that studies have shown that casual games have started breaking new territory and reaching new market segments and tapping into not just the tradition young male audiences but are now attracting a greater number of females and age groups that previously were much smaller (Media Contacts 2008).

With the rise of video games, there have been some advertisers who are gradually starting to see the opportunities that video gaming has to offer the market. There are good reasons why in-game advertising differs from other forms of advertising. One being that games bring player interactivity and sensory immersion which when cleverly implemented can blend reality with the game world and can actually supplement a game rather than take away from it. Another opportunity available is that games provide players with the unique ability to allow a player to feel and control a brand such as the game Gran Turismo where a player is given the opportunity to drive a car based on the real world (Nelson, Keum & Yaros 2004). This form of brand interactivity is the next form of evolution which will never be able to be experienced from simply watching a movie or reading a paper. Lastly the longevity of brand exposure is much different and much longer in video games when in comparison with a 2 - 3 hour movie, a video game can generally run well over 10 hours.

Meeting of Two Worlds

Advertising in video games can be put into the 2 main categories, advergaming and in-game advertising. Advergaming is the design and creation of a game around a brand or product which gives consumers an entertaining experience while at the same time receiving brand exposure. One really good example is of when Burger King created several games with their mascot king for very cheap prices with value meals and managed to sell a whopping 2 million games in just 4 weeks (Media Contacts 2008).

Promotional Burger King Games

In-game advertising can be classified into 2 subcategories, the static and dynamic in-game ad. The static in-game ad is generally a method of permanently adding a brand into a game which gives advertisers the brand exposure for the life of the game. This has been done with the video game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory which had a big billboard of Axe (known in Australia as Lynx). Dynamic ads on the other hand are constantly changing ads which not only make it more adaptable to advertisers but also are able to target specific target audiences based on their internet locations. One of the best and most famous uses of dynamic in-game advertising was in 2008 when the Obama campaign made an agreement with EA games. An ad blitz was launched targeting 10 states which were either battlegrounds for the coming election or ones that allowed early voting.(Fox News 2008) The fact such steps were taken from the highest levels, shows how video games are starting to be seriously recognised as a tool for marketing agencies for reaching new target audiences while also breaking through the clutter in finding new ways of engaging audiences.

News Segment on Obama In-Game Ad

From an economic perspective one of the most accepting arrangements between advertisers and gamers is that of the free game with ads. It is where gamers are given the option to either have ads and have a free game, or no ads and pay for the game. Consumers have become less resistant to advertising due to being given the choice and are more accepting of the exchange.

Product placements although have usually been a tactic employed by advertisers in movies and television, with video games starting to become closer to resembling movies, product placement is now used as another method for showcasing brands in video games (Media Contacts 2008).

Harmonization

When working together in a harmonious way both advertisers and gamers can both win. Advertisers are able to reach new wider audiences while engaging more with the consumer and gamers are given much more control of the brand and embrace it in games that supplement the immersion in a video game. However there are also risks when advertising becomes too aggressive and takes away control or immersion of a game. When this happens gamers generally feel anger towards the game and the brand and can have quite the opposite effect (Nelson, Keum & Yaros 2004).

With video gaming becoming more mainstream and reaching larger audiences, it is the golden opportunity for advertisers to really now start taking advantage of that growth. There have been many methods over the years which have shown new breakthroughs in ways which companies and organisations have taken advantage of the new digital media revolution. When such strategies are implemented in beneficial ways, it has been shown that customers become much more receptive to advertising (Takahashi 2008) and has become a new way of cutting through the clutter.

Reference List

Unit Readings

Spurgeon, C 2008, Advertising and New Media, Routledge, Oxon.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Digital Media Convergence: Advertising & Video Games, The Convergence of Two Worlds

Growth & Opportunity

No comments: