MITX | One to One Interactive Engagement Series: "Player Engagement & In-Game Advertising"

Posted by Jeremi Karnell on April 1, 2008 at 1:00pm

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On March 2th, 2008 One to One Interactive and MITX bowed the first presentation in its new Engagement Series. Jeremi Karnell, President of One to One Interactive and Tyler Pace, Research Assistant Indiana University School of Informatics presented initial findings from their research titled "Player Engagement & In-Game Advertising". Hosted by UK Trade & Investment at the British Consulate in Cambridge, MA. the presentation is an early insight to what will be a formal report that will be published in Q2 2008.

Key Findings:

High impact ads may be located at both frequent and terminal game play points such as finish lines, save screens, menus, etc.
If you know your brand is not familiar to the player base of the game/genre, highly visible placement will improve recognition and association.
If your brand is familiar to the player base for the game/genre, placement is less important to success.
Primary research to quantify player physiological engagement with specific game titles may help in media buying selection process and ensure higher brand recognition/recall.

Comment by Dean Whitney on April 3, 2008 at 7:29am: Is ad inventory in console games hardcoded or can it be updated periodically? I've noticed that Xbox games download updates; I'm wondering if advertisers can refresh their placements.

Comment by Jeremi Karnell on April 5, 2008 at 10:02am: Ad Inventory in games at this point is soft coded (game developers identify ahead of time those pieces of virtual real estate and code them so that creative can be dynamically layered on top of it). Companies like Massive offer the inventory it to any advertiser any time after the game is launched. Xbox was the first console to enable this type of in-game advertising. Sony is coming out with a solution this year. Expect the WII to jump on the band wagon as well.

That said, it still make sense for some brands to consider working with game developers directly to help underwrite special functionality within the game. We did this with Comcast. OTOi worked directly with Ubisoft to build in some hard coded branding (which blocks out others from grabbing that real estate after he game launches) and easter egg functionality within the game (such as Speed or Weapon power ups). After the game launched, Comcast also included that game title in a more comprehensive in-game ad buy with Massive.

Comment by Dean Whitney on April 6, 2008 at 5:58pm: Next it will be segmenting the ad inventory/style and profile targeting players in real-time; based on playing habits, skills, in-game behavior as well as geographic location (if its not being done already).