iMedia Panel: Gaming Impact & Measurement

by Brian Reich | 29 Mar 2006, 2:00am

The last panel of the iMedia Breakthrough Summit was entitled: “Gaming Impact & Measurement”
Moderator:

Andy Fessel, Consultant, IAB

Participants:

- Michael Dowling, Senior Vice President, Nielsen Entertainment

- Amy Shea, Research Director, Ameritest

- Joshua Larson, Director of Industry Products, GameSpot, CNET Networks

Gaming has actually been around longer than the web.   The fact that advertising is joining the medium when its in a fairly mature phase is interesting.   But the space has much more room to grow and develop. All we really know about the game sector right now is how many games are sold.   There is no robust measurement for how much is played or how.  

Types of in-game advertising
Big time product placement
Static billboards
Dynamic Ads
Unlockables/Extras
Mode/Level Sponsorship
Q: With gaming, we have an opportunity to measure around immersion.   What do we want to measure?

Joshua: We know gamers are a highly desirable demographic and they are playing.   We need to know if putting your brand in a game will impact it in a measurable way.   We need to look at effectiveness measures, as well as impression based measures to allow it to compare it across mediums.

Amy: What strikes me is how much the gaming community is re-teaching the advertising community about what they should have known all along.   Emotion and engagement and relevance all made good branded entertainment (aka 30 second ads).   They got away from that with the concept that you could push a whole lot of ads at someone.   And they failed.   Whenever you talk about what’s effective for brands - relevance, fit, emotional involvement.   Cognitive and attention pattern is important, but also emotional engagement will drive results (persuasion, purchase intent, etc.).

We did a study - looked  at the MTV Video Music Awards to see if ad integration worked.   Some ads worked, some didn’t.   Was the audience engaged or not engaged?  

Q: Everything that is right about a game is wrong about television.   You have frequency, duration, immersion, a hard to reach audience.   What else do we want to measure?

Joshua: We really have no idea just how big gaming really is.   How much is spent with all these games.   Game play metrics.   How much time is spent doing all these activities is just really key.   It might take a few years, but soon a majority of consoles will be online - broadband connection - because then we can track real numbers.   Not self reported or diagramming, real numbers.   Not just for marketers, but I think the push can come from brand marketers.   The industry needs that info as well.

Michael: We do have new sales figures, but we don’t have numbers on rentals or pass around, borrowing games, etc.   Nor do we have info about the halo effect, the social impact of games.   Very different to see the reach of new sales vs. lifetime reach.   We need a stronger metric.   Even when we get 100% of the online universe we won’t have 100% of the universe online, so we will need some other ways.

Q: What does it do for my brand?   Brand impact and measurability.

Amy: When you think about brand integration and film, having the real values of the brand integrated into the story are key.   That is true for games as well.

Q: The gamer is elusive in terms of measurement

Josh: I’m happy to be the voice of the angry malcontents.   What we have done  to date  is just observe behavior.   Get out of their way, see what they are clicking on.   Message and brand is important.   Need the measurement ot get out of the way - can’t get in the way of their experience.

Study: Gamers are reception to in game advertising (sort of)

• 5 in 10 recall seeing ads in games
• 4 in 10 are likely to remember an ad they see in a game
• 3 in 10 learned about or became aware of a new product or service
• 8 in 10 are irritated by ads that get in the way of gameplay or aren’t a good fit for the game
• 7 in 10 would rather see ads in a game than have to pay more for the game
• Half say its really hard to see or pay attention to some ads
• 23% avoid particular games because of advertising.

We can’t just throw ads at them - there has to be some perceived benefit.   We receive advertising (gamers receive advertising) because it is free.   It has to add something to experience.

Question (from the audience):   How do you measure different types of brand integration (skiing through gates branded with ads, vs being surrounded by ads)?

Michael: Its as expected - if they don’t see the ad for a consistent period of time they won’t feel it.

Q: Will there ever be a way to measure in-console games that are not online?

Michael: Yes, through panels.   In the future, with online hookups, you will have enough of a census level measurement to project to the population at large.   And the big point is that we can have a much bigger sample that we have now.

Q: Community.  There is a new and enahced way to get a message out.   How do we address that?

Amy: We saw a lift in measures (in the Video Music Awards study) when people watched the VMAs with others.   It made a big different in the length of the program - how much they watched - and whether they watched it with others.   The more social experience they were having.   If they were going online at the same time as watching.   That increased the awareness of the ads.

Michael: Did a study of 18-34 year old gamers.   50% played a game with someone in the room.   The halo effect of the social effects of game play are real, significant.

Josh: There are two forms of activity we can get — around the game (user profiles, chats, etc.) is captured well now.   In the game, the mult-player aspect, what are they chatting about, what is coming up - fascinating insight that we don’t have yet.

Question (from the audience): What are the thresholds for an ad being highly pervasive?   How many times do I have to see a game in an ad for it to work?   How many impressions do we need to have to know we are going to get enough.

Michael: We believe anything above a .3 is signifant.   We need to do more testing.   Test in the home.   See what the impact of 20, 30, 40 hours of game play over a few months will have.   Haven’t yet looked at frequency caps and such.   Don’t really have the answer just yet.

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