Advertising Style Gets Its Game On

Writing by Brick Marketing on Sunday, 13 of July , 2008 at 11:37 am

Advertising companies have long cashed in on the voracious appetites of online gamers. Of course the ads are usually FOR the games that they are trying to sell, rather than ads for other products, but targeted to gamers.

Yahoo Games recently announced that they will expand their online gaming to include into ad-supported online game options by the end of the year.

Basically, Yahoo Games is expecting to offer ad-supported downloadable games by partnering with other online gaming partners such as Double Fusion and NeoEdge Networks. The partnership with these gaming communities will result in ads sold to display before and after the games, and occassionaly during. (During the game is not going to be all that popular, and probably result in a backlash from gamers.)

The problem that comes with this is gamers, the target audience, will be viewing a lot of these ads as interruptions and intrusions into their gaming activity. Resentment is NOT the kind of feeling that an advertiser should want to instill into customers.

Another way of looking into this (basically same) advertising ploy is to use ads as virtual gamer money. In essence, let the gamers pay for the game with their time. Ultramercial, LLC allows a gamer to pay for their game by watching an ad. Their attention to a 30 second spot pays their way to the game that they want.

This advertisement style will gain appreciation, not resentment, from the target group that the advertiser is focusing on.

Incidentally, Ultramercial, LLC is claiming a click-through rate of over 4% for sponsors’ ads. Appreciation goes a long way.

                      Category: Local Online Advertising                      

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