Video game advertising reaches the next level:
Cadillac tried a novel approach last year to get young male car buyers excited about its tricked-out V-Series Collection luxury vehicles. Rather than make its pitch through magazines, TV commercials, or online display ads, the automaker took its campaign to the Xbox 360.Through an arrangement with Xbox Live, gamers were invited to download and put through their paces three virtual V-Series cars in a popular high-speed driving game called Project Gotham Racing 3. In less than six months, more than 240,000 players snagged the game. All told, they raced the cars more than 1 million times.
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That [Nielsen Media Research media consumption study] provided the inspiration Townsend needed to co-found IGA Worldwide, the in-game ad brokering agency where he is now CEO. “In the early days, companies would spend about $50,000 on an in-game ad to experiment with the model,” Townsend recalls. “Now half of our clients are making significant six-figure deals for in-game ads.”IGA isn’t the only player watching those trends; some of the biggest names in digital marketing are betting heavily on the genre.
Last year Microsoft bought Massive, the leading in-game ad broker, for a reported $200 million. Earlier this year Google snapped up in-game ad shop Adscape Media for $23 million. Massive and other ad brokers, like IGA, allow agencies to buy space in many games at once, much as they would TV time.
Meanwhile, major agencies like Ogilvy, Omnicom, and Publicis are focusing more on games. Publicis has recently expanded its games ad group from two people to 10. These moves aren’t just for bragging rights; Parks Associates estimates that the in-game ad market will be worth more than $600 million in three years, up from $120 million last year.
The latest console games provide fertile ground for product tie-ins. Gamers this season who take to the increasingly photo-realistic fields of NCAA Football 08 on the Xbox 360 will get more than just accurate football plays; thanks to a partnership with the Weather Channel, they’ll play in authentic stadiums where the in-game weather matches that day’s real conditions. Old Spice sponsors the game’s “Red Zone Report,” and as fans stream out of the stadium after the contest, gamers can watch a clip honoring the Pontiac Game Changing Performance.