November 15, 2005
Get Your Game On: The Rise of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Mobile Advergames<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Rick Mathieson
Call them pocket pastimes. Games to go. Or even just fun on the run.
By whatever name, mobile games have garnered a massive amount of industry press over the last year, with worldwide sales expected to top $1.7 billion by 2008, according to IDC. As a result, marketers in numerous industry categories have taken notice. And many are setting their sights on using mobile games not just as revenue earners, but as exciting new venues for selling everything from automobiles to motion pictures.
And no wonder: Dubbed “branded entertainment,” mobile games designed to feature specific products in starring roles can create immersive experiences for key demographic audiences.
In Jeep Off Road Jam, for instance, players wiggle their Wrangler down trails and rough terrain. As they progress up levels, their Jeeps are upgraded to the Sport, Sahara and, finally, the top of the line Rubicon.
“Here’s an opportunity where you can blend the brand into the entertainment experience, with rich graphics, color, and action” says Craig Holland, founder and former president of Irvine, Calif.-based mobile game maker Thumbworks, which was recently acquired by international mobile entertainment firm IN-FUSIO.
Thumbworks also produced Suzuki Motocross Challenge, which places players at the center of a championship motocross race featuring jumps, obstacles, and bonus points for aerial stunts.
“The bikes in the game are based on the real motorcycles, down to the color and the model numbers,” says Holland. “Games are a really interesting alternative, because if you look at other types of media, advertising interrupts the entertainment experience – and when you’re talking about a young male audience, guys are trying to get rid of that kind of stuff. [Branded games] make you part of that experience in a very powerful way.”
Besides, there’s money to be made – typically $3.99 to $5.99 per mobile game, says Holland.
Even when they’re free, the ability to use mBranding can prove quite powerful. In PC-based gaming, more than 10 million people have downloaded America’s Army, a first-person shooter game that the Army gives away as a rather desensitizing – and reportedly effective – recruitment tool. And the $40 Full Spectrum Warrior sets the action in Baghdad, where players take on Iraqi insurgents.
A variant called “in-game branding” enables marketers of everything from movies to consumer-packaged goods to use gaming as a promotional tool. Imagine billboards and signage in popular games like NBA Basketball One-on-One, Highway Racer, JAMDAT Racing or Baseball Heroes of the MLBPAA, where advertisers can hawk everything from soda pop to candy bars to music CDs to athletic shoes.
Got game?
For DaimlerChrysler, in-game and branded game experiences have proven quite fruitful. Though the company doesn’t break out numbers for results from mobile games, its overall “advergame” initiative, which includes Challenge and the popular PC-based Jeep 4x4: Trail of Life, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of downloads. Approximately 40 percent of players report they’re considering buying one of the company’s vehicles.
“We’re using electronic gaming to do what we’ve done with advertising throughout the ages – we’re casting a net where the fish are schooling,” says Joel Schlader, Chrysler Group’s senior specialist for interactive marketing and gaming. “In some cases, gaming becomes a very good surrogate for a virtual test drive. One of the benefits of advertising through electronic gaming is that it’s very interactive and it’s fun. You can arguably provide more realism with electronic games than you can with any other medium, other than being physically with the product. It’s like a movie in that there is a story being told. But unlike a movie, the story has a different ending each time you play.”
Chrysler Group has also embedded advertising billboards in popular games like the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series of games.
Indeed, this trend toward product placement is growing swiftly. In Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, success on one level of gameplay is contingent on the protagonist mastering a Sony Ericsson smart phone. Spending on such in-game advertising has already reached $200 million a year worldwide, and could top $1 billion by 2008.
Given the changing media consumption patterns of 18- to 34-year old men, in particular, this is no small matter. In the wireline world, Nielsen Entertainment and game producer Activision have created a game-rating service similar to the venerable Nielsen TV service. Gamers who agree to participate use gear that tracks what games you’re playing, what level you’re on, and which in-game ads you’re being exposed to, so in-game advertisers can optimize their in-game ad space purchases at a level that’s currently impossible with television.
Using new peer-to-peer solutions from New York-based Massive Inc., advertisers like Nike, Daimler Chrysler and Intel even have the flexibility to serve up ads when players who are most likely to want their products are logged on. “We can target specific demographics or even specific regions of the country,” Richard Skeen, Massive’s VP for advertising sales, told Business 2.0.
That means if it’s June, and you’re at level three of WWE Day of Reckoning, you might see an ad for an upcoming summer blockbuster. If it’s November, you might see an ad for holiday gift ideas. You may one day even be able to place a purchase.
And while the system currently only works with Massive’s wireline gaming network, similar functionality may one day come to wireless – and could even entail links to product information or even direct sales.
A Monster Hit
Next month, branded mobile entertainment will take on a whole new level of visibility with the launch of King Kong: The Mobile Game, based on the remake of the famed movie classic by director Peter Jackson. With an acute sense for fan-boy enthusiasms, Jackson’s mobile game reportedly tells the entire story of the film, putting players in their choice of roles, from Kong to hapless human alike. The idea: create excitement in the film’s young male audience, while racking up some sizable licensing revenues.
And why not? Show business success has always been predicated on the pursuit of youth and the adoption of new technologies, from talkies to color movies to television to the Internet and beyond. It’s no different in wireless.
“The entertainment industry is a very competitive business, and Hollywood has always been an early adopter of any new medium," says Jonathon Linner, CEO of Enpocket, which has produced mobile initiatives for several movies and TV shows. "Hollywood is starting to pay attention to mobile because the results have been really incredible."
And mobile advergames will likely play an increasing role in the equation.
As Thumbwork’s Holland puts it: “It sure beats an SMS campaign.”
# # #
Adapted from BRANDING UNBOUND: The Future of Advertising, Sales and the Brand Experience in the Wireless Age © 2005 Rick Mathieson, Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission. All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org.
BRANDING UNBOUND: The #1 Bestselling Book on Mobile Marketing
Available wherever books are sold
