Without a doubt, Covid-19 has been a turning point in our lives, but also in those of companies. Some sectors have suffered the worst losses in recent years, while others, such as the video game sector, have been richer than ever. Specifically, after the pandemic, spending grew by up to 75%.
Therefore, the current boom in video games is making brands keep them in mind when thinking about great options to advertise the product or service they offer.
Before fully introducing ourselves to the term In-game Advertising, we must differentiate it from Advergaming, another concept that, due to the similarity of the words, could cause confusion between them. “Advergaming” occurs when a brand creates a video game where it is present and where it seeks to promote its own product or service. Meanwhile, as we will see in more detail in this article, In-game Advertising consists of introducing advertising into a video game as part of the decoration or scenario, in a less invasive way than “Advergaming” since it is introduced in a more natural way as part of the play space.
Video games are an exceptional space to be merged with brands. Everyday millions of users spend a large part of their time getting involved in new experiences within these digital universes and this type of advertising allows them to interact with the brand, thus facilitating memory and positioning the brand within their own minds. The term Top of Mind was coined for this positioning in the consumer’s mind, which we have already mentioned in some articles such as: “Metaverse, a digital world full of opportunities for sports brands”.
In-game advertising can be divided into two types depending on the prominence that the brand wants its products or services to acquire within the video game. It can be static or dynamic. In the first case, as it is part of the initial programming process, it cannot be modified or evaluated through any analysis. In this type we also find two subtypes: positioning advertising, where the product appears in the background; or integration advertising, where the product takes center stage and becomes part of the narrative.
Dynamic advertising, on the other hand, can be monitored throughout the campaign and be analyzed in depth. Also, unlike static, it allows us to make changes at any time. This type of advertising was born when the consoles began to allow you to play through an Internet connection.
We can find within this typology four options for developing dynamic advertising:
- The Interstitial ads, interactive ads that are located throughout the entire screen and that appear when the player ends a test or pause.
- Native banners are a type of native advertising whose advertising impacts are integrated with the content so as not to interrupt the user.
- Contextual ads, which are introduced when the context requests it, that is, when it is related to the situation that is currently being experienced in the game.
- And lastly, Playable Ads, videos where the user can interact, and which can be used either while the game’s content is loading or as a sample or teaser of another video game.
Therefore, as we have been seeing throughout the article, there is no doubt that video games have a wide range of advertising possibilities. Options that are characterized by the clear effectiveness of their impacts and from which we must know how to get the most out of it.
