When branding becomes more than just a game

Picture the scene. You’re relaxing at home, catching up with friends on Facebook, playing a game, doing your best to escape from the realities of the outside world. You need to earn a bonus to move yourself up to the next level and just as you’re about to do so, a brand pops up on screen and offers to provide it for you. Irritating or inspired? Well, soon we may have the opportunity to find out because the move into the gaming sphere represents the latest response by advertisers to embrace new techniques to ensure that their advertisements are noticed. Not only has Amazon announced that it is going to start creating games in a bid to earn itself a slice of the $6.2bn social gaming sector, but one of its competitors in the field, King, is to introduce a new in-game ad format that will allow brands to pay to associate themselves with boosts or extra lives. It is easy to see why this could be tempting for brands. King claims that advertising across its gaming network could help brands reach over 30 million, predominantly female game players across Europe and the United States. But how will we, as consumers, feel towards this latest potential move by brands into another area of our private lives and leisure time? We have become accustomed to using technology to bypass advertisements and sponsorship messages, most obviously through the ability to digitally record television and then fast forward. However, when it comes to television or radio, consumers are generally passive, compared to gaming, when they are arguably at their most active. The key, I suspect, will be in the role played by the brand in-game and how heavy-handed that branding might be. Relevant in-game branding - for example a sports brand being represented within a sports stadium environment would seem to be a pertinent even subliminal fit (though the advertiser may argue “too subliminal”). With exposure this subtle and fitting, we would anticipate that it would enhance consumer perceptions of the brand. Research has, in the past, supported this view. An IAB survey in 2007 found that 86% of gamers were happy to see ads placed within games if it brought down the prices they had to pay, whilst a third said they would be either quite likely or very likely to buy a product they had seen advertised while playing.Only 14% said that ads ruined the gaming experience. Interestingly, 40% said that ads in games made them more realistic while 27% said that interacting with a brand during the game, such as gaining more energy by drinking a can of an energy drink, did not constitute advertising. However, if the brand is repeatedly associated with an event within the game that itself becomes frustrating, the player’s perception of the brand is likely to suffer by association. If in-game advertising is realistic, contextual and non-intrusive, it offers great potential to brands. But, beware, because if you get the context wrong, the downside for the brand could be significant.