"Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing" (PDF)

[S]oftware developers
explained how they
purposefully create
games to make them
“in sync with the
brand,” ensuring that
images players see in
the game are similar
to what “they see in
the supermarket
aisle…[and on TV]
Saturday morning.”
Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing | The New Digital Marketing Landscape
Industry analysts predict that in-game advertising will continue to grow, becoming
a dominant business model for most games in the future. Keynoting the 2006 Game
Developers Conference, Kevin Browne, Microsoft’s general manager of its Xbox new
media and franchise development, told participants:
When you think about it, a fairly small shift in advertiser behavior
could replace all the revenue that we generate today. We could be a
totally ad-funded business if we could figure out how to do that. We
could double the size of our industry by 2010 by finding the right
mix. 221
Marketing is already shaping how new games are designed. At a recent conference
on interactive advertising, software developers explained how they purposefully create
games to make them “in sync with the brand,” ensuring that images players see in
the game are similar to what “they see in the supermarket aisle…[and on TV] Saturday
morning.” Games must always be “addictive,” and should include a “viral component” as
a “persistent navigation element” that is always a part of the experience, thus giving players
“the opportunity to contact friends and urge them to play.” The more rooms built into
a game, the more opportunities players will have to “interact with the brand,” enabling
the game to foster “deeper engagement with users.” Finally, games need to be designed
in such a way that they can be “continually updated” and facilitate ongoing data collection
and analysis so that companies can know which “elements are being used.” 222
With funding from advertisers, the next generation of interactive games could be even
more powerful vehicles for engaging consumers with brands. Digital technology, including
broadband, now permits thousands of gamers to “simultaneously interact in a game
world connected via the Internet,” according to a June 2006 report from the ad firm
Universal McCann. “Massively Multiplayer Online Games” (MMOG) already generate $350
billion a year, and are “the fastest growing entertainment segment in the world,” according
to the report. Combining the worlds of virtual reality, gaming, and targeted advertising,
MMOGs will increasingly become part of the advertisers’ arsenal “to engage with a hardto-reach
youth demographic.” 223 As IGA Worldwide executive Justin Townsend recently
explained, “The next generation of ads will be 3-D interactive ads—clicking on an appealing
billboard to receive an email for that brand, for instance. There’s a big difference
between image-based advertising and transactional advertising. The whole concept of
clicking on a billboard will shift [in-game advertising] to a transactional ad medium.” 224
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