Opinion - Generation Media

Jonathan Chambers Director of AV Investment, Generation Media.

Gaming: the untapped advertising frontier

As advertising is seen as a more fundamental part of game development, Jonathan looks at the possibilities for toy companies.

When deciding how best to invest advertising budgets, much of the debate is focused on viewing behaviour. Has YouTube overtaken TV? Is TikTok a viable platform brand? Will Netflix and Disney+ ever offer commercial opportunities? However, when it comes to children’s media behaviours (as well as adults’), gaming remains an under-utilised means of reaching target audiences.

52% of UK parents of 4–9-year-olds allow their children to game for more than one hour per day on weekdays (Giraffe Insights, Little Voices). For comparison, the same aged children spent an average of 80 minutes per day watching Linear TV, 48 minutes per day viewing online videos (i.e. YouTube) and 59 minutes watching SVOD (i.e. Netflix) in 2020 (Giraffe Insights, Little Voices¸ September 2020).

The potential is clearly huge, yet gaming has perhaps been overlooked due to historically not offering advertisers many cost-effective routes to market. Certainly, huge proportions of children’s gaming time is spent with non-commercial titles on consoles, but increasingly advertising is being seen as a more fundamental part of game development.

This has steadily been changing over recent years, and 2021 is set to be the breakthrough year for gaming as a medium, for the advertising industry as whole. The IPA established gaming as one of the core focuses for the year at the annual presidential address, whilst Campaign’s recent Gaming Summit provided advertisers and agencies a full day experience designed to develop a deeper understanding of what can be achieved.

What does this mean for toy advertisers?

Firstly, when assessing the media mix for the second half of 2021, make sure your multimedia approach is not limited to viewing platforms only. For the right brands and audiences, simply placing your TVC in apps and games can arguably offer as much impact as linear TV or YouTube. Although these opportunities are often at a premium compared to more established formats, there is an argument that they can offer greater engagement due to the lean in nature of the medium. This is particularly true when buying incentivised formats whereby the gamer is rewarded with in-game currency for completing the video. As such, expect to see players such as SuperAwesome, Playwire and Venatus feature more heavily on second half plans than ever before.

Beyond simply placing existing TVCs into a new environment, there are more and more formats emerging all the time, and many of these are extremely accessible. In fact, some are even available to be served programmatically. The best thing is that the ads are becoming less intrusive. Rather than plastering a banner ad over the top of a game, dynamic in-game advertising offers brands the opportunity to seamlessly integrate into gaming environments with their display activity, for example, on billboards within the game.

Best of all, unlike many forms of online advertising, these dynamic formats evade ad blocking technology as they are controlled by the developers and essentially sit within a walled garden. There are also few brand-safety concerns (outside of game selection) as all apps/games we utilise need to pass checks in order to gain their PEGI rating (or equivalent) before publication. To make the most of these formats in H2, make sure that you keep imagery bold, keep any call to action soft (hashtags are a good idea), and keep text to a minimum. Making use of the wide array of custom formats with clear messaging will also help to build frequency and brand awareness.

However, perhaps you feel more ambitious and want to create a truly bespoke experience for your target audience. Advances in development capabilities mean that is now a reality for brands, as evidenced by L.O.L. Surprise!’s recent integration into Roblox, developed with SuperAwesome.

L.O.L. Surprise! Official Party brings the OMG house to life, allowing players to dress their character, learn official dance moves and unlock rewards in an area where they can safely socialise with other online players (monitored by moderators).

If you are keen to replicate this process for your brand, you should act now. Whilst development times have increased exponentially in recent years, building a bespoke game of this magnitude can take months, although there are some shortcuts and templates available if you’re willing to have a more “off-the-shelf” experience. Above all, be prepared to give up some control over your brand (within reason). Without compromising brand integrity, it is important to remember that in order to truly engage the audience, then the game needs to function well as a game above all else. 2021 will see the greatest diversification of media investment from the toy industry in history and there are many compelling reasons to make gaming a part of your media mix. To find out how best to integrate gaming into your campaign strategy, get in touch with Generation Media.