Search results matching tag 'advergames'

14% Loaded

1721792 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:02:00 GMT

Another day, another glossy advergame, this time it's a Coke Zero effort and the idea seems to be that coke zero is for real men who can keep three equally irritating women happy simultaneously. In recent weeks similarly excited emails from the design department have heralded the launch of equally expensive interactive 'experiences' for the new VW GTi and the Army.

I'm as impressed by the production values and so on as anyone and I've often pined after the kind of budgets these projects have obviously commanded but is this really the way forward for online marketing? It can't make sense to have a web ever more cluttered with beautiful but ultimately pointless branding exercises. I'm also as guilty as anyone having produced something in a similar vein for O2 a while back.

But really - how many members of the target audience will depart from their familiar pattern of facebook, spotify, myspace and the BBC? How will they ever hear of this latest effort and why should they care? Apparently the kids will love it but I can't see why they should, they can flick on their PS3 and play Motorstorm with their mates which is about as much fun as you can possibly have without real company.

Talking of the PS3 (and all other gaming consoles) the other major benefit apart from a vastly better gaming experience that they offer is that the games load in seconds. The Coke Zero game made me wait three times perhaps for a total of 2-3 minutes before i even got to have a go at the Guitar Hero rip-off that turned out to be the game.

I'm not sure what you would call the answer but I think the more the technology sits in the background and the more people benefit in real terms and the quicker they're in and out the better. If pushed for an example I think the great love conspiracy by AIM Proximity in New Zealand and Whopper Sacrifice are good examples. In this country the Spot the Bull promotion Poke roll out every year for Orange ticks the boxes as does the Killzone 2 work by Agency Republic. The one thing they all have in common is relatively small budgets which given the current climate can be no bad thing.

In-game advertising

878512 — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:07:29 GMT

David Murphy gives a good overview of the current state of the in-game advertising market in this week's Marketing - worth a read if you're interested in that sort of thing...

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IAB in-game advertising report

878512 — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 10:00:27 GMT

Gaming is the fastest growing form of entertainment, with a global audience of nearly half a billion people, yet it’s been reported that UK adspend is currently under £10 million. This report from the Internet Advertising Bureau assess the opportunities for advertisers within the gaming space.

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Virtual Me

878512 — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:46:39 GMT

Electronic Arts and Endemol have announced the launch of Virtual Me, which:

is intended to bridge the gap between traditional TV (how OLD does that sound), videogaming and the internet. A user-friendly tool will help users to create life-like cyber clones or avatars, giving the possibility to be a rock or a movie star (at least in the 10100101011 binary world), and offering them the chance to participate in talent TV shows like Fame Academy or Who Wants to Be A Millionaire.

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Home, the Second Life Habbo killer

878512 — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 19:53:33 GMT

Just watch the video

Of course, they'll need to release PC and Mac clients.

Update: Thanks to Nick in the comments below, here's another video with more detail:

I am the passenger

878512 — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:09:48 GMT

Netanel Jacobsson has details of the making of The Passenger, a Nokia advergame, conceived by HyperHappen. You can bet there's going to be hype about this in the coming weeks.

I have to admit, it's a great concept, and is a clever way of demonstrating the product. However, if you actually bother to play it, it feels as disappointing as the unresponsive Dragon's Lair, the original Laserdisc video game.

BBH do digital. Badly

878512 — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:36:30 GMT

BBH have just launched TT Remastered. As Contagious reports:

The sleek flash based site includes 14 tracks from emerging artists who each cover a track from their favourite idols, including Electro-Pop band Coco Electrik’s rendition of Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ and Farrly Purkis’ cover of the classic Dylan song ‘Positively 4th Street’.
The site also features the free downloadable game ‘Journeys Through the Sound’ where users can cruise around in the new Audi TT collecting arrows and dodging road signs to build up a landscape to the rhythm of the music. Another attractive feature on Remastered is the series of podcasts for free download. The show's presented by Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley include behind the scenes footage and interviews with the featured artists explaining the reasons behind their choice of covers.
Hopping on the mash-up bandwagon, Audi have also collaborated with U-myx on Remastered giving users the chance to take the music samples, remix them and upload them onto the site for everyone else to hear.
Russell Ramsey, Chief Creative Director of BBH London, describes the fundamental concept behind the project: "Remastered captures the spirit of the TT in a very engaging way. It allows the viewer/listener to be entertained first and foremost across different channels. They can interact with the music but also the car. Driving and music go hand in hand for lots of people."

I'm not going to comment on the quality of the insight or the idea. The execution however, leaves a lot to be desired - if users want to play the game they need to download a 40MB executable. To remix the music, they need to download a 10MB+ zip file, with an executable and a PDF of T&Cs inside. The site also trys a little to hard to be 'cool', and fails miserably. Goodtechnology must be laughing their pants off right now. However, BBH will learn quickly (they have, after all, just hired an old colleague of mine, Michelle Stanhope, who was previously Glue's head of production).

In-Game Ads To Be Worth $1.2B in 3 Years

878512 — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 11:21:55 GMT

Ed Bartlett, a VP at IGA, talks to Spong.com:

"Here at IGA, we’ve looked at numerous predictions from major analysts in the industry – including reports from Citi, IDC, Yankee Group, Forrester and SIG – and we can confidently state that the in-game advertising industry should be worth at least $1.2 billion by 2010. The growth rate is just phenomenal!”
"By the end of the decade anything the in-game advertising industry is going to be worth anything between £800 million to $2 billion annually. Certainly a billion per annum by 2010 is reachable, whereas at the moment we are at something like $350 million a year. "

[via]

Advergames bump Burger King's profit

878512 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:00:51 GMT

"Since the fast-food chain launched a limited-edition collection of three Xbox games in November - Pocketbike Racer, Big Bumpin', Sneak King - sales of BK Value Meals have spiked to bring home meaty profits during the company's second quarter.
The world's second-largest burger chain said Tuesday its fiscal second-quarter profit jumped 41 percent to $38 million. Company officials cited consistently strong Value Meal sales and the video-game giveaway program for the positive report.
BK's games joined the ranks of other top-selling Xbox titles during the holiday shopping season with more than 3.2 million copies sold."

Impressive - MIT Advertising lab has more.