Power Of Advergaming And Its Impacts On Consumers Marketing Essay

Power Of Advergaming And Its Impacts On Consumers Marketing Essay Within the concept of social media, the mass media marketing strategy is one of the crucial tools of product placement on the commercial persuasion and entertainment. Thesis: Assessment of advergaming with respect to its development process, impacts and usage; how usage of advergaming changes as product type differs and; what are the advantages/strengths and disadvantages/weaknesses of advergaming. INTRODUCTION TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTERS 1. ADVERAGAMING AS MASS MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY 1.1. DEFINITION OF ADVERGAMING 1.2. DEVELOPING AN ADVERGAME /ADVERGAMING AS A FUTURE TOOL 2. USAGE OF ADVERGAMING BY BRANDS 2.1. THE INTERNET EFFECT 2.2. IN GAME ADVEISING VIRAL MARKETING 3. THE IMPACT OF ADVERGAMING 3.1. INFLUENCE ON PLAYER 3.2. RESEARCH ON CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR 4. DIFFERENCE THAN OTHER ADVERTISING TOOLS 4.1. ADVANTAGES/STRENGTHS 4.2. DISADVANTAGES/WEAKNESSES 5. USAGE OF ADVERGAMING IN TURKEY ***EXAMPLES 6. HOW USAGE OF ADVERGAMING CHANGES AS PRODUCT TYPE DIFFERS CONCLUSION REFERENCES ADVERAGAMING AS MASS MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY Definition of Advergaming The question of what advergaming is can be approximated in diffrent ways. In the manner of linguistic portmanteau it is of advertising and gaming. Techniquely, it is the practice of using video games to advertise a product, organization or viewpoint. [2] As a term, it was coined in January 2000 by Anthony Giallourakis. Later on it was mentioned by Wireds Jargon Watch column in 2001. [2] An advergame is an online video game that has brand related images and/or themes embedded within it. As marketers have begun to catch on to the idea, Websites containing advergames have been published by a diverse variety of corporations and non-profit organizations. [1] Besides the usages of product placement within a game, a more effective and innovative way of designing a game only for the purpose of advertising a brand or a product is recently being used by advertiser in order to reach to targets on an online platform. Advergames are such video games which are funded directly by an advertiser. Also, they usually are distributed free of charge to the consumers. The differences between the product placement and advergaming was clearly determined in the book Changing the Game, by David Edery and Ethan Mollic like highly integrated product placement, well-designed advergames have the power to entertain consumers in an engaging and informative way. On the other hand, unlike product placement advergames offer business more control over the context in which the brand is experienced by consumers and saves them the possible hassle of operating within the constraints imposed by game developers. [3] To sum up, advergaming is an interactive game-product created for being more well known by the customers and increasing brand equity. The core idea of advergame is receiving information while entertaining the game. The other facilities of advergames will be examined in the following sections. Developing an Advergame / Advergaming as a future tool Advergames are still a very new research area. With the usage of simulations, advergames aims to inform the customers about what they will experience after trying the product in real life. Advergames also have the ability to create curiosity in the minds of targets which would lead a high selling rate. One o the greatest example of advergaming is the Americans Army. [8] The actual aim behind developing such a game was first by tempting the gamers being a solider, increasing the army population. Today, the game has more than 100.000 gamers. Similarly, in order to take attention to the hunger and starvation problem in the world, United Nations also developed an advergame called Food Force. These two huge projects show us how much an advergame would be powerful and influential in the log run. The benefits of advergames such as; the brand image reinforcement, databases created from the advergame can be used for demographics research, targeted markets can be reached by your advertising (when the game link is emailed), visitors may spend more time on your site, increased traffic due to viral marketing. [5] USAGE OF ADVERGAMING While the usage of advergaming being explained, firstly the question of why advergames should be used has to be answered. Most of the advertisement forms cause the customers to loose their interest and patience. So therefore, advergames which has the benefits mentioned above are very welcomed as an innovative way of both advertising and advertainment. The reason is because; the high interaction attracts consumers to join the game. In the world of Advergame, the participation of game is the participation of advertisement. [9] Interactivity, uniqueness, viality, technology are the basic content for the question of how an advergame should be. [9] Secondly, the brands should care about the following points if they want to use advergames more effectively and create powerful advergames. The steps can be sorted as first, brand and target group positioning analysis (e-marketing strategy analysis) have to be done. Later, game planning and design (Market specific game planning and project plan) is needed to be completed. Third, creative design and programming (art design and art programming development) is also necessary for a strong advergame. Then, game promotion and publication (make the website promotion plan) and collection and analysis of statistics emerges. Lastly, online evaluation and suggestions are done for a complete advergame. [9] All in all, the usage of advergames has to be considered in two perspectives which are why a company should take advantage of advergames and how should it create a more powerful one in order to reach more customers and have more profit. In the following parts the internet effect in our lives will be considered to give a wider point of view that the advergames are the most influential and powerful tools of online advertising. Further, the in-game advergaming and viral marketing concepts which are the tools of advergaming process will briefly be explained. The Internet effect Since reaching the most number of customers is the main aim of brands to increase their profits, in order to be being known by a wider mass, they first have to conquer the areas used by these customers. Internet is one of these fields since it is being used by almost everyone nowadays. In his article The Ability of Branded Online Games to Build Brand Equity: An Exploratory Study, David Deal approaches the increasing usage of internet as a growing trend toward turning off the television and tuning in to the Internet is forcing many marketers to enter a relatively unexplored advertising arena where the best methods of reaching and influencing customers are as yet unknown.[1] In the article he also argues, the studies have found that many Internet users spend their online time by playing video games. This realization, with the help of the researches leads a new mass media marketing strategy that integrates games with advertisements which is advergaming: a hybrid form of branded entertai nment. [1] The growing use and acceptance of internet in our lives, forced the marketers to use new media rich forms of online entertainment ways where they are more interactive and incorporated than previous ones. This also results with spending less time with traditional media, especially television. The rest of the leisure time is being preferred to be spent on internet. [1] Therefore, one of the best ways to include a marketing message which is needed to be reallocated by the companies, become internet. Furthermore, a greater portion of the internet population is getting used to the new forms of entertainment, especially with the available video games. [1] That is actually where advergaming takes its power from. Within the last ten years, the aim of reaching these online consumers was very crucial for advertisers. In order to discover that how much an average individual looks at a Website page, there have been several studies done. The results show less than half of all banner ads to which people were exposed, are being perceived. [5, 9] As a result, advertisements that people purposely avoid viewing simply do not have an opportunity to make an impression. [1] Then the idea of forcing the consumers to look at these online ads became a new trend. The pop-ups, interstitials, and pop-unders which were very intrusive, were found to be even more disliked than banner ads. [1] One of the imported points of this type of advertising is the amount of time that the gamers spend not only by playing the game but also by interacting with an advergame and as a result being exposed to the marketing message. There are several factors determine the time interval such as age, gender, type of game, and involvem ent with brand or product. The duration can range from 5-7 minutes (for a typical scenario) to 35 minutes (such as for Coca-Colas Live the Madness game) or longer [13, 16]. [1] In game advertising Viral Marketing Advergaming can be achieved mainly by two different ways. First, the brands can prepare thir own games and present to the customers. Second, they can also place the ad in to the games that already exist and have many players. The Sims or Second Life would be given as examples. The second is also named as in-game advertising. Moreover, beyond in-game advertising, Internet also encourages the gamers (users) to invite their friends to participate the games which could favor promotion form mouth to mouth, or viral marketing [2] where it can be defined as a marketing technique whereby information about a companys goods or services is passed electronically from one Internet user to another. In game advertising is being used very commonly since it is easier and less costly for a company than building their own online game. Also, by placing their logos, brand images, or the products as a simulation into a game, which is widely being played all around the world, companies can increase the probability to reach more and more customers. It is a huge arena so that impacts will also be quite large. THE IMPACT OF ADVERGAMING Influence on children Nutritious vs. Obesity Advergames are one of the most used marketing strategies to attract children and teenagers, creating in them an emotional link with the brand. This strategy can modify attitudes, in many occasions without applying responsible consumption, because the processes by which children purchases decisions are made are not as structured as adult decisions. [7] Its Childs Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children [10] how advergames, which are online computer games developed to market a product, affect consumption of healthier and less healthy snacks by lowincome African American children.[6] Playing With Food: Content Analysis of Food Advergames [11] iyi anlamda Games with an Agenda: Entertainment for Consciousness Building [12] Researchs on customer and advergame relation Since the advergaming concept is a new format of advertising, even though it appears as promising, there have been a very little number of researches on it that scientifically prove its effectiveness. Also the adoption of the customers all around the world has not been justified yet and still unknown. [1] However, its potential cannot be underestimated. Before considering some of the researches and their results, it is necessary to mention that, since the advergaming is an internet based online advertisement form and most of the user or gamer population is composed of children and teenagers, the advergames target these two groups at most. However, the recent researches demonstrate that not only kids and teens but also many other surfers play advergames. 59% of the boys ages 13 to 17, 62% of the men ages 18 to 24 who go online, the largest group of women game players is between the ages of 45 and 54. [5] So therefore, according to that statistics it can be claimed that the advergaming is not only for kids any more. Here are some of the research examples and it will be examined that how there researches resulted in the means of advergaming. These types of researches are trying to measure the effects of online advertising on customers, by comparing interactive and non-interactive ads in order to determine their relative efficiencies across brand equity. At the end, it is concluded that visually stimulating and interactive forms of advertising are more effective at brand building in the sense of components of brand equity (aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, message association, brand favorability, and purchase intent). Indeed, highly interactive and animated advertising format could be expected to have a greater impact on brand equity than a traditional banner advertisement.[1] Some other studies are trying to figure out the emotional attachment of users to the brand. They claim that this emotional arousal generated by a brand with an interactive format of advertising increases an individuals attitude toward the advertisement positively to which they are exposed. The results show that the greater degrees of interactivity with an advertisement produced the higher levels of appreciation for the ad itself and for the Website on which it was deployed. [1] To sum up, researches have found that the less time a person that enjoys an advertisement spends thinking about the actual marketing message itself, the more they will like the advertisement [18]. [1] These studies indicate that for the advertisement the advergames could be expected to have a high level of appreciation. DIFFERENCE THAN OTHER ADVERTISING TOOLS Advantages/strengths A 2002 study comparing different ad types [12] found that advertisements that involved animations and/or interactivity were twice as effective as ordinary banner ads at generating message association, a component of brand equity. Interactive ads were compared to non-interactive ads to determine their relative merits across five different components of brand equity (aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, message association, brand favorability, and purchase intent). Disadvantages/weaknesses USAGE OF ADVERGAMING IN TURKEY Examples Rabarba.com HOW USAGE OF ADVERGAMING CHANGES AS PRODUCT TYPE DIFFERS CONLUSION Traditional product placement has taken on new meaning and force.