Advergames

Primary Goal: To Increase Awareness of and Ultimately Sell A Product Through Games

Understanding advergames in your life

Advergame Trivia

Power of Advertising

70 million people are playing advergames at

workTraditional

advertising isn’t working all that

well

America’s Army most effective

recruiting tool ever for U.S. Army

Advergame Classifications

S • Sponsored Advergame

I • Integrated Brand Advergame

P • Playable Brand Advergame

T • Brandistraction

Sponsored Advergame

Brand sponsors the game but the brand isn’t part of the game play or the gaming experience.

Sponsorship announced at beginning or end of game.

Integrated Brand Advergame

The Brand appears in the game but doesn’t figure prominently as part of the game play.

Playable Brand Advergame

Brand figures prominently as part of the game play.

Brandistration [Bran-Distraction]

An emperically entertaining game in which the brand and the game are inseparable in at least two ways:• Without the brand, the

game isn’t playable• The game isn’t winnable

unless the player acts in a way consistent with previously established attributes of the brand.

Advergames Popularity• More advantages than television/radio/print

• Commercials last about 30 seconds/print ads viewed for a fraction of that time

• Advergames people can spend 7-10 minutes at a time (Weir, 2007).

• 42% of Advergamers play more than once a week and 18% say that ads help them decide what to buy (Hein, 2006).

Advantages and Costs

• 30 second prime-time slot can cost half a million dollars, advergame rarely costs more than $50,000 to develop and posted on internet for months or years

• Advergaming enhances reach and frequency, expanding reach via internet and are free to users.

• US spent $118 million on advertising with videogames in 2004 and in 2012 US spent over $39.5 billion

Limitations and Threats• Few limitations – protection under the First Amendment

• Issues with advergames and children health i.e. cereal brands

• Cost effective

• Time children spend on internet makes it easy to attract and hold attention

• Interactive aspect of play and retaining information

• Viral – send to a friend (extends reach)

Big Names in AdvergamesPepsi www.pepsi.com

Domino’s Pizzahttp://more.dominos.com/wp/2011/07/btpgames/

Coca-Cola http://www.fallingdominoes.com

McDonald’s http://www.mcvideogame.com/index-eng.html

Mercedes Benz http://vimeo.com/32197929

Google http://www.google.com/ads/games/index.html

U.S. Army – America’s Army 3 http://emerging-advertising-media.wikispaces.com/advergaming

ADVERGAME TIME

Surf the internet and identify an example of the different

categories of Advergames. You can begin here if you like:

http://www.fuelyouth.com

http://www.blockdot.com

http://www.letsdesign.co.uk/index.html

http://corporate.miniclip.com