Advertisers are always looking for new ways to reach consumers…
Ads have become so pervasive, that they have become almost invisible. People just tune them out as they walk around, and skip over them when the come on TV. Click-thru rates online are tiny. Getting people to pay attention amid all the noise is a major challenge. So it should come as no surprise that advertisers are looking seriously at engaging people on a relatively untapped front.
Online Video Games…
This is a potentially significant opportunity for advertisers. Contrary to what most people believe, video games are not played exclusively by geeky adolescent males. According to this report from the Entertainment Software Association, the average age of gamers is 33, and 25% of gamers are over 50. Also interesting is that 38% of gamers are women.
Since video games are connected online, ads can be served up dynamically. This means that they can be very targeted and personalized. Different ads could be served up based on the the type of game, where the gamer lives, how long they have been playing online, and other details about past game play and actions.
I could easily imagine the local Dominos Pizza advertising in a game after someone has been online for a long time and it is late at night. If that could be tied together with a ‘click to order’ capability, this approach would probably have very high click through rates compared to other forms of media advertising.
And it would be viewed as more of a service then an intrusion…
There are two big players in this market: Massive, Inc (which was acquired last year by Microsoft), and AdScape Media, which is reportedly in talks with Google. This is still a nascent market – no one yet know what will and won’t work, and what the economics are around targeting people inside games.
Second Life, the MMORPG that offers people an alternate world experience, has had virtual stores (selling real world products) for some time. The first was American Apparel, a youth oriented clothes store. You can have your Second Life avatar enter their virtual store and shop, but you can only buy items by clicking on images on posters hanging on the walls. You don’t shop off the racks as you would in a physical store.
Second Life also has ‘ad agencies’ targeting players that want to sell virtual goods. Virtual goods can sell for significant sums of money. People value their status and ‘comfort’ in these virtual worlds. They are social spaces, and material possessions – albeit virtual ones – matter the same way they do in the real world. And since both virtual and physical goods have commercial value, there is no reason that online stores couldn’t carry a selection of both kinds – a unique hybridization that could have special appeal to online players. It would offer interesting cross sell opportunities – buy the physical item and get a virtual one for you avatar. It will be interesting to see this commercial model evolve.
I find virtual online experiences compelling – be they in immersive games or life simulations. They offer a place where people can have property and friendships, and live out part of their lives. They are places that have meaning. And that’s enough.
The worlds may be virtual, but the opportunity to sell is very real…