Mobile Advergaming

There's been a lot of hype lately about gaming, advergaming, and the role both play in the mobile marketing value chain. Brands can use mobile games for brand awareness, premium content revenue, product placement, and so on. Games can help integrate fun and entertainment into the mobile consumer's experience, driving overall adoption of mobile and brand participation.

Face it. Mobile games are pricey and still represent a relatively small portion of the overall mobile content sector. Consumers have cited pricing, choice, and lack of interest as the top reasons for not downloading more games.

How can games be made more economical for consumers? Perhaps the easiest and most talked about method is to subsidize games through advertising. By watching an ad before the game or allowing brand product placement within a game, consumers can download the game at a discount or for free.

Advergaming basically promotes a product or service throughout the game. Games can not only feature brand sponsorships but also include brand or product placement.

While mobile gaming across European markets and the US saw moderate growth in 2008, Asia Pacific (in particular India) witnessed significantly stronger growth. Rising mobile penetration, increased adoption of Smartphones, and a large segment of young mobile phone users have combined to drive growth in mobile gaming.

Research has shown that teenagers expect to be marketed to on their phones, similar to how the Internet, TV, and other media work. In regard to gaming, teens anticipate and expect advertising, special offers, e-mail, and SMS messages advising them of new games, incentives, and ways to rate and share games (viral marketing).

Advertising dominates every sphere of our life: the Internet, television, outdoor... Ads are everywhere, and mobile is no exception. Ads are being rolled out or trialed in messaging, mobile Web, video, and downloads. With a growing pool of mobile gaming developers and better integration among mobile operations, handset manufacturers and software providers, an ecosystem is being established to make this increasingly popular value added service accessible and affordable to consumers. As with every other advertising medium, ads will play a role in the mobile channel. It's simply a question of how and when.

With Google and Apple currently leading the way, almost every mobile operating system today comes with the concept of an app store. With Google’s recent takeover of AdMob, we can now expect to see further innovation in the mobile advertising model.

What opportunities do games present to the brand? A source of premium content revenue? Maybe. A chance to connect with consumers and build brand awareness on an ongoing basis? Yes. An opportunity to integrate advertising and product placement into games to further expand the message to the consumer? Definitely!

Advergaming presents an opportunity for brands to reach the consumer. If the demographic target is ideal and fun is a focus, try offering games as part of your mobile marketing mix. Lots of partners are available who have the expertise to help out.