In this post I'm going to explore in more detail a theme I've touched on a couple of times before in Facts Are Stubborn Things and Games Advertising Takes Center Stage. And at the risk of sounding insulting - my apologies in advance! - I'm also going to continue paraphrasing past Presidents by saying games advertising is no different to any other form of digital advertising inasmuch as it's primarily about the audience, stupid. Advertisers just want to target and go.
Let me clarify what I mean by that and why it's important for both advertisers and for Microsoft Advertising.
One of the most common questions asked of me and many others in the industry is: How big can games advertising really get when it's simply not appropriate to include ads in some of the most popular franchises, such as Halo and World Of Warcraft?
It's a fair question because millions of people have spent billions of hours playing those games. But it's taking too narrow a view not only of games advertising in particular, but of digital advertising in general.
Think of movies. In films like Avatar you will never see billboard ads in the jungles of Pandora, but the 1.3 billion movie goers annually in North America are a valuable audience for advertisers. While in-movie ads doesn't work for every movie, advertisers do run spots and trailers before the main feature to the tune of more than half a billion dollars a year in the US. And there are also myriad other ways marketers align themselves with movies without intruding on the story or interrupting it for commercial breaks.
Massive is enabling publishers to add inventory so that advertisers can reach the large audiences of games that preclude advertising. This happens in "around-game" environments like Xbox LIVE lobbies and on leaderboards, plus traditional Web sites, just as advertisers reach movie goers in the environment of the cinema but not during the film.
This of course is in addition to dynamic in-game advertising and fixed product placement in titles in which ads are absolutely appropriate and add realism, such as sports games or those set in contemporary urban environments. (Here's an example of the power of combining our in- and around-game offerings across the Xbox LIVE and Massive platforms.)
But back to the original point about audiences . Advertising and media spend follow the eyeballs and many indicators - such as this, this and most recently this - point to the growth of games as an advertising medium. (Even as sales dropped off last year, time spent gaming increased.)
Increasingly, the eyeballs of the elusive male 18-34 audience can be found among our unparalleled reach of 50 million gamers in 31 countries, whether in-game or around-game, across the Massive and Xbox LIVE networks.
And network is the operative word. We're very proud of the publishers we partner with and I blogged about Massive's "blockbuster line up" of Fall/Winter titles to highlight the breadth and depth of our network. It is this breadth of offerings and the reach of our network that means advertisers - whether they are QSRs or auto makers or entertainment brands - can find their audience and engage with it in new ways. The vast majority of our advertisers understand it's unlikely they will find their complete audience among the players of a single game, or for that matter successfully run an entire campaign in a single title, no matter how big. Consequently, only a small, single digit percentage of them buy media in specific titles.
This network effect is present in all forms of digital media, allowing ever more targeted, efficient and cost effective advertising. We've seen this in the long tail of the Web and through the rise of online ad networks. We're beginning to see this in TV too, and I'd encourage you to take a look at what my colleagues at Microsoft Advertising's TV Media Group are doing to allow advertisers to buy audiences across the breadth of NBC Universal's network, delivering increased relevance, performance and efficiency for advertisers while simultaneously unlocking value in NBC Universal's inventory.
For the same reasons advertisers are unlikely to find their audience or achieve their objectives for a campaign in a single video game, or in one TV show, today they're also unlikely to want to engage with that audience through a single media channel or delivery mechanism. That's why Microsoft Advertising offers the ability to run multi-screen campaigns across the Web, mobile, and TV. Our role is to make buying ads in games - the jewel in this crown because of the unparalleled combination of Massive and Xbox LIVE - as easy as buying ads in any other digital medium.
The Microsoft Advertising platform allows advertisers to target and go, across content, devices and time. Check boxes and click to buy - it can be as simple as that. And what they're buying is the audience, stupid.
Thanks,
JJ
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If you'd like more information about advertising opportunities available across the Massive network, please contact your Massive sales representative or email us at massinfo@microsoft.com.