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Analyst Speak: In-game ads have the power to reach influential young men

6 August 2009

James Myring, head of internet research, Continental Research

Massive, Microsoft Advertising’s in-game ad division, has experienced growth over the past six months, with new and repeat clients embracing in-game advertising in a growing number of European markets.

The advent of online gaming has opened up an enormous audience to advertisers. Online games for PC or consoles are increasingly designed with blank updatable advertising hoardings so in-game campaigns can be served dynamically and targeted at particular demographic groups relatively easily.

At Continental Research, we conducted a profiling study of 15-34-year-old male Xbox 360 online gamers in the UK. To put the findings into context, we compared them with ordinary young men. What stood out most about online gamers was their competitive nature - 72% love playing against others. This urge to be and have the best drives attitudes to brands and makes this audience an extremely attractive proposition for advertisers. At 41%, almost twice as many online gamers agree that they prefer premium goods and services than young men generally (21%). They’re also more likely (34% versus 23%) to keep up with fashions, making them an ideal audience for brands such as FCUK, which used in-game advertising to relaunch itself to fashion-conscious young men.

There’s also plenty of evidence that in-game advertising works. The results of 12 ad effectiveness studies we’ve conducted had an impressive average ad recall of 54%. This increases brand equity and likelihood to recommend. Recall was 57% among exposed samples and 49% among those who hadn’t seen the ads. This is particularly important because of the influence of online gamers - 71% think they could influence other people’s choice of mobile phone, making in-game advertising ideal for creating buzz around a campaign.

Further evidence of the growing maturity of in-game advertising is the publication of standard measurement guidelines by the US IAB. The IAB UK already has a council to evaluate their suitability for the market. In-game advertising is becoming established with norms to show effectiveness and increasing standardisation of reach making it accountable. The business model is robust enough to survive, even flourish, in the recession. As advertisers become more familiar with the branding potential of in-game advertising, we expect further growth.

Readers' comments (2)

  • Glen Lamb | Fri, 7 Aug 2009 9:22 am

    I think it's worth noting that the vast majority of the enormous numbers of antisocial geeks that play online games aren't the sort of people that woudl fill in this type of questionair, and they deffinately are not going to care about FCUK they'd rather wear geeky t-shirts. (like the awesome "ITS A TRAP" one)

    Conversly, those that were asked that weren't online games are already displayign signs that they aren't going to care about "being the best" since it's a pretty common thing for young men to be doing nowdays. Those results don't show anything that isn't really common sense, and i don't see how that is a proof of any kind that the advertising is working since the potnt was raised in the article that that these people are already likely to be fasion consious and therfore already have their prefered brands. is this not correct?

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  • sheenjhon | Fri, 4 Dec 2009 9:38 am

    In current times young generation people are more attracted towards games not only in the matter of playing but also in the case of building their carries in gaming.This field is blooming for all the students of Computer and I.T Engineering branch.All this can be very well understood form the graph shared in this post.
    Mio Navman M450D

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