Roddick vs. Pong

Its US Open Time, and that means lots of creative tennis themed TV commercials.  I was watching the USA Network (don’t ask) and saw one for American Express featuring Andy Roddick vs. Pong in a tennis match.  In a related ad, viewers are invited to see if they could beat Pong in a tennis match.  Log on to http://www.stoppong.com/ and see how good you are.

Notes from New Orleans

I spoke last week at the Public Radio Develment and Marketing Conference in New Orleans.  With nearly 700 development professionals and station managers, it is considered the “premiere educational event for fundraisers within public broadcasting.”

First, a thank you to Betsy Harmon, a consultant and advisor to DEI (the conference organizers) for online fundraising and e-mail marketing, who organized the panel and invited me to join.  Second, a thank you and an apology to my co-panelist was Deb Ashmore, the Director of Individual Giving, WXPN in Philadelphia.  XPN is a pretty innovative station when it comes to the use of the web and Deb had a lot of good information to share.  I went first in our presentation and most of the questions from the audience that followed focused on elements that I had raised (I think, because a lot of what I talked about was new, and probably outside the comfort zone of the audience).  We had planned for the session to generate a brainstorm for how to use new tools to raise money, and instead we spent much of our time explaining and advocating.  I am hoping this is just the first of many panels where Deb, Betsy and I can collaborate - there was such a tremendous amount of energy in the room about the use of new media that I know there is a lot of interest in finding ways to get hands on with this stuff.

Here is a copy of the powerpoint from my PRDMC Presentation.  I will offer some observations in another post.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Home Depot, and other companies, are starting to use interactive video to sell products:

One of the new ideas to make multimedia work for retailers is to make it interactive. For example, HomeDepot.com has built out an array of videos for multipurpose drills and other items not well served by a single photo and a short text description. When HomeDepot.com started selling large, costly appliances like ranges and refrigerators last year on its Web site, the company suspected the idea might not fly if the products were displayed with a thumbnail picture, a few lines of text and a price.

As a result, it started displaying a product demonstration alongside refrigerators and other items, with a twist. Rather than run uninterrupted video of someone fawning over a fridge, the company offered customers a way to click on various parts of each appliance to view short audio clips about distinct parts of the equipment. Macromedia’s Flash technology, meanwhile, lends motion to otherwise static photos and helps romanticize the images.

Matthew Kumin, the EVP at car-sales site Edmunds.com was quoted in the article saying this:

“We’re trying to incorporate video with what the Web’s great at, which is interactivity,” he said. “We’re putting the user in control. The way others do multimedia online is old school — you put up videos and let people watch them. New user experiences need to be built.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am excited that The Grey Lady has decided to promote this very important topic.  I just wonder how many people reading the article realize this is nothing new.  Interactivity and user control are the core elements that have driven online growth and success - in retail, and every other sector - for years. 

What they should be writing about are virtual interactions that appear in online communities and games.  Imagine a scenario where a character you control in a video game finishes a mission, heads back to her house, walks up to the (brand sponsored) refrigerator, and gets a sweet tour while picking out a (brand sponsored) beverage) to regain strength before continuing competition.  That’s not new either, but its a heck of a lot more sophisticated than what most people are doing.

iMedia Panel: Gaming Impact & Measurement

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.

iMedia Panel: Gaming Creating & Execution

The afternoon focus at the iMedia Breakhrough Summit Panel was gaming.  The title of this panel: “Gaming Creating & Execution.”

Moderater

- Julie Schumaker, National Director of Sales, Video Advertising - EA

Participants 

- Gerard LaFond, Partner - Persuasive Games (also President of Red Tangent)

- Claire Lipnicki Ekizian, Account Director - MarketSource IMS

- Gordon Paddison, Executive Vice President, Integrated Marketing - New Line Cinema

Our topic is dynamics and challenges in the process of advertising in video games.  We all want to know methodologies and what is the ROI.  What isn’t as often covered is the actual execution - which can be quite challenging.  This panel should help people understand what is the A to Z of being part of game.  Focus on Video Game Integration (aka branded entertainment/product placement) and Advergaming (where the brand is actually the entertainment).

Q: What challenges have you faced in putting Castrol Syntec to a game?

Claire: It was a very long process - over 18 months.  Long decision making process, very long on integration. 

Q: Timing.  How does advergaming create a better solution from timing?

Gerard: The timeline to create an advergame is only 2-3 months.  You can typically get something up in about the time it would take to film a tv spot.  You can also re-skin a popular arcade game, which can happen very fast.  That is the entry level.  But the challenge is creating a custom advergaming.

Q: How does a non-entertaining brand make entertainment out of games?

Gerard: I don’t think every brand is right for advergaming.  There is an opportunity in advergaming that is similar to the opportunity in the game space as a whole.  But, that creates challenges for advertisers.  They have to tell good stories. 

Q: Is it building a game experience, or just building media?

Gordon: Advergaming is content.  We created a game in 18 days for a film, Running Scared, which was a good example of both advergaming and in-game advertising.  Every element of the game was preceded by a video clip.  We had an age gate (to make sure people were 17+). It got picked up by the blogs, and then the mainstream media - it got a lot of attention then.  The game followed the character development and that worked really well.  There were in-game placements, such as a movie theater actually in the game (with a reference to the movie) and buildings/billboards that featured information about the film.  They were funny, irreverent enough (didn’t take themselves too seriously) - the goal was to make the audience laugh, and drive them to the movie.  The question is — what level of gaming engagement do you require for your brand?  In some cases, all we need are people to sample.  If they are going to the site they already have awareness, so just a little bit of conversion is good.

Claire: We want to associate our brand with the game.   We want more than just a quick hit.  We had bonus packs, a cheat code (available on the Castrol Syntac website) that tied back involvement to the brand.  We really wanted people to immerse themsleves in it.

Q: Viral marketing has to be a big part of video games.  How do you create that?

Gerard: The games can’t live in a silo by themselves.  It has to be a part of an overall communications and marketing effort - with online and offline partners.  But if the game isn’t any good, isn’t controversial (doesn’t have sex, isn’t funny or irreverent) - then it will languish.  There are ways to get around that.  You can go to a game portal and find a built in audience.  You can partner with larger game portals (Yahoo! Games, etc.).  And 99% of the time we are giving away an advergame, so we don’t care who has it, just that its out there.

Gordon: There are a lot of grassroots and offline initiatives you could try.  But you have to remember the game is trying to sell the brand, the product - so you need the game to do its job and promote the product, and not rely on the existing packaging for the product to promote the game.

Q: How do you become a part of the story?

Gordon: You give a creative brief to a bunch of crazy game developers, they come back with someone insane, and you say go for it. If its safe enough, you put it out in the light of day  If its not safe, you put it out in the middle of the night and then promote the heck out of it.  Remember, we aren’t trying to reach consumers, they are malcontents. There are certain brands that are natural for this space (Red Bull) and make sense in the environment.  They are also consumed while people are playing games.  So its about finding the audience and going after them appropriately.

Q: Isn’t it an oxymoron that endemic brands need to be in games?

Gordon: How many energy drinks are out thre?  How do you differentiate Red Bull from another drink?  That’s when the lead time can benefit - someone can say they have a movie coming out in March ‘07 or a new drink in Summer of ‘08 and they can fit. 

Claire: That’s why it made sense for Castrol to be in a game.  Selling motor oil in the context of a racing game s something we will also want to do.  So we had the time to get it right.  Now we can do even more of it.

Gerard: If you are dealing with game product you have to be dealing with gamers.  Often we are selling to an agency or a brand manager who may not be a gamer.  What we often end up doing is buying a console and some games and tell them to play.  Then we will talk to them about why it makese sense.  Its really important to be deadling with gamers.

Q: Can you name a really Bad Game?

Gerard: Go to the WD40 website - there is a game where things start squeaking and you spray them.  That’s just silly.  There is the potential for a backlash if you make a bad game.

Q: Can you give an example of bad In Game Integration?

Gerard: I don’t like in-game advertising, because I am a gamer and I am really concerned about my favorite games becoming filled with advertising.  There is an opportunity for something like an oil brand in a racing game.  Or a handheld device that is integral to the story.  But there is constantly a tension in sports game - there are some things that are ok (you expect billboards in a stadium) but don’t overdo it.

Gordon: I agree 100%, except sports games, anything that mirrors the real world - if you could stream live ads to extend the broadcast opportunity into the game, that is the reality of the situation.  That’s the normal experience.  They expect that.

Q: What is over the top? 

Gerard: A lot of the automoative brands we work with are worried about doing something bad, going too far.

Claire: Castrol Syntec wouldn’t do anything that crazy.

Final Comment: If game are going to become an ad medium, they have to be more scalable than they are currently.

iMedia Panel: Marketing to Gamers

Mike Denzler, the Media Director for Freestyle Interactive delivered a case study entitled: “A Whole New Ball Game: Marketing to Gamers.”  Here are my notes:

Publisher Challenges: Slowed console growth & market maturation (there are 100 million vidoe game consoles in the market, but only 1% are next generation consoles, connected to the internet or similar).  Transition ‘fitness’ year and economic impact.

Marketer Challenges: Everybody’s targeting the game audience - they are highly desirable.  But, the gamer audience is very hard to reach - they don’t respond to traditional advertising.

Leveraging Opportunities: Broadband proliferation, community & communication, on demand and user control.

The gamer media habits align perfectly with marketers goal of leveraging emerging media (early adopters, difficult to reach in other channels).  Video, mobile, and community provide vehicles to keep in front of games.  The key is the creative.