ANALYSIS: Internet - Games try where banners failed. It's the marketing hook of choice as surfers ignore online banners and icons

Tired of banner ads and floating icons? If advertisers aren't, consumers certainly are. And they're voting with a mouse click, prompting marketers and their agencies to look beyond conventional forms of online advertising to pump up flagging attention span. Which may explain the growing popularity of online games, dubbed a killer marketing application by an industry researcher. As an increasing number of companies turn to games to pitch their products and services, internet users too are flocking to game and entertainment sites on the web. The increased penetration of broadband in Asia, particularly in markets such as Korea and Hong Kong, has helped boost the figures for online gaming by 69 per cent from February to September, according to NetValue. The stunning jump in internet activity spells good news for marketers. They are now banking on the so-called advergames to help build interactive relationships with consumers. All this makes their job of flogging everything - from coffee to cars - that much easier. Game choices range from the internet version of scratch cards to mini games on websites as well as more advanced entertainment offerings. Research company iamasia's director of marketing and communications, Steve Yap, said that marketers in Asia who were leveraging the potential of online gaming as a marketing tool, fell largely into two categories. They are either existing brands which use online gaming to extend the consumer-brand relationship and permission marketers who use gaming content as a way to build a database of individuals, which is then sold to advertisers. "Games are becoming a killer marketing application for the internet, as they offer a much deeper level of interactivity unmatched by offline media," says Yap. Advergaming is also gaining popularity with clients in China, where online media company Sohu.com is attracting marketing dollars with multimedia games for international clients such as KFC, Pizza Hut and Nestle, and for local brands C-bons, Kejian and Founder. Charles Zhang, Sohu.com president, says: "Young urban Chinese live fast-paced lifestyles and demand value for every minute spent on the net. The biggest challenge facing advertisers is knowing how to successfully drive young people into a marketing campaign when thousands of competing ad icons are fighting for the same 'voice'." He believes that advergames can hold the attention of consumers longer than television advertising, allowing companies more time to "educate" consumers about products. The demographics that comprise game players are the same as that which influence broad consumer demand, according to Dentsu Hong Kong's interactive director, Agnes Chan. Chan helped create an online game for Nestle, with the objective of increasing milk sales to children as young as kindergarten age. "Reaching such young kids can be difficult," says Chan, but adds that games can be created to appeal to internet users of all ages. She said the growing number of children accessing the web was also good news for marketers. "Young people present a good target audience for this type of marketing. We generally find young adults and kids prefer not to read long text and are attracted more to games and chat-type features. And these are the same age groups influencing and setting trends for buying." Ogilvy Interactive's regional creative director Graham Kelly said the agency had created advergames for a more mature market, including an online game for the women's brand Feminax in Indonesia. "It's a fun game and uses a lot of humour. The idea was to target younger and older women who suffer from PMS. The game is a stress reliever when they feel irritable. Women can pick their weapons - guns, scissors or books - and basically kill 'colleagues' who piss them off. The great thing about it is that it's viral," says Kelly. "If a game is good, users will forward it to their friends." Many of the games available on brand sites are viral, with internet users encouraged to forward games to friends via email. But while this could benefit corporate clients with free word-of-mouth promotion, Chan said clients were also attracted to the cost of creating advergames. "The fact is that this (games) is the cheapest application tool to create on the site when you compare with chat rooms or other features. There is also the fear with chat rooms that users may key in topics or statements that may hamper the brand image," comments Chan. However, Dean Middlebrook, Sohu.com's corporate communications manager, said both chat rooms and online games "have very high labour costs", but - depending on the age of the user -advergames offer a more compelling experience. "The older the user becomes, the less likely they are to play games. So, product chat rooms are great for niche users, for example, car buyers, who use the platform as part of the information search and evaluation phase of the consumer decision-making process," observes Middlebrook. Marketers can also track or monitor internet users to obtain general information, such as how long consumers play a game and the decisions they make when pitting their skills in an advergame. "It is possible to use games as questionnaires to find out the preferences of players. It depends on the aim and the mechanism used, but marketers can drive the selling point to make a game more reaction-focused," says Chan. Although many consumers have learned to ignore pushy e-marketing messages on the billboard-strewn digital superhighway, most web surfers are likely to be more protective of their online leisure choices. This online behaviour trait could easily extend to digital games, which in the past was more about entertainment than marketing or branding. Middlebrook said there was a fine line separating the two. He said the majority of Sohu.com's clients used advergaming to gather information on clients, but cautioned that monitoring or tracking user experiences could end up alienating consumers. "Tracking is possible once the experience gets more sophisticated. But there is the potential of alienating the user. Even with chat rooms, once users discover a marketing company has infiltrated a discussion, it can be very damaging to a brand." Advergames are often part of a larger integrated advertising campaign, involving other media in an effort to encourage consumers to go online. But more importantly for marketers, users generally spend longer periods of time interacting with games than with advertising. "Advergames not only focus the minds of consumers on brands longer than traditional advertising mediums such as television and newspapers, but it also provides marketers with a rich database of information that tracks consumer tastes and buying preferences," adds Zhang. Most clients using advergames said they were well received by consumers and had effectively raised branding levels or sales. For portals and online agencies seeking additional revenue, advergames also offered opportunities to secure advertising assignments, while making clients more confident about online advertising's potential, said Middlebrook. "As there's so much competition and we really need to close advertising deals, advergames help us demonstrate more substantial results to clients as they generally show a higher click through rate than other forms of advertising and marketing."

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