In-game advertising has allowed marketers to successfully reach their target audiences in engaging and original ways and they are enjoying excellent rewards from their investment. At an IAB seminar on in-game advertising in 2005, Tim Hosking, formerly of IGA Worldwide revealed that many brands who have moved in-game are achieving increases in recall, product awareness, and purchase intent. After appearing in the game, Need for Speed Underground 2, Cingular achieved a 69% unprompted recall of their placement (Nielsen). Flash Car Wash benefited from a 60% increase in awareness after appearing in London Taxi (Nielsen) and 51% of American Wasteland players would recommend a Jeep to a friend and 65% would consider (eventually) buying one (Nielsen).

In this section we outline how Hive, the strategic communications arm and wholly-owned subsidiary of IGA Worldwide developed a unique communication strategy in-game for Ben Sherman; we show how Massive Network used in-game successfully across three separate market sectors and provide three brand-specific examples from Double Fusion’s portfolio.

IGA Worldwide, Ben Sherman

British lifestyle and fashion brand, Ben Sherman, last year approached Hive to develop a unique communication strategy. Ben Sherman, in an effort to drive awareness of their brand amongst 18-32 year old males looked to the engaged, aspirational gaming audience to gain maximum exposure amongst their target demographic.

Atari’s popular driving game Test Drive Unlimited was selected as the best environment to meet the brand’s objectives. Test Drive Unlimited is the world’s only massively open online racing game and moves beyond the standard circuit racing titles to offer a lifestyle/ driving hybrid. In TDU appearance and social positioning is as important as the cars. So as gamers playing the game race their vehicles over 1,000 miles of Hawaiian terrain, there were opportunities for Ben Sherman branded billboards, virtual interactive stores and tie-ins with real-world activity.

The in-game activity moved beyond simple static ads and built recreations of the Ben Sherman flagship store in several locations within the game where the racers could dress their characters up in the Ben Sherman spring/summer 2006 collection. Players could even try on their garments and select their ‘look’ before purchasing.

Supported by Ben Sherman billboards, the campaign enabled players to become actively involved with the Ben Sherman brand and products.

For people playing the game on an Xbox 360 were also able to gain Xbox Live achievement points if they purchased 10 or more items of Ben Sherman clothing, to create additional positive association with the brand.

Massive Network

Massive Network provided the IAB with a brand specific case-study for the Warner Bros film V
for Vendetta and two separate examples of how non-entertainment sectors have successfully embraced the in-game discipline; the auto aftermarket and a personal care product.

Warner Bros. V for Vendetta
Warner Bros. approached Massive to target a youth audience for the European movie release of their film V for Vendetta. The campaign used geo-targeted ads, with country-specific creative to match the movie opening dates across Europe. The V for Vendetta campaign ran across 12 European and Scandinavian countries and over 500 gamers were surveyed in the UK and Germany to judge the effectiveness of the campaign.

66% of gamers who recalled the Vendetta ads cited seeing the ads in video games, higher than any other medium and over 60% of gamers said that Vendetta ads did “add to the environment”. Brand metrics, awareness and interest were improved, clearly proving the V for Vendetta campaign effectively engaged and impacted the target audience.

Sector examples

Having evaluated new media to engage young men, an auto after-market client and its agency selected to go in-game. They ran a campaign across platforms in 12 titles for 8-12 weeks, delivering a range of creative executions into each game. They tracked the campaign in real-time across titles and platforms and executed research to assess the impact of the different executions. 95% of those surveyed were the target male 13-34 demographic and 15%+ of them who recalled seeing an ad that featured a URL reported visiting the site.

When Massive were working on a new personal care hair styling product and were looking to target a youth audience, they ran a campaign across appropriate titles on PC and XBOX platforms and integrated different executions across titles. The results of the campaign showed increases in brand favourability, purchase intent and ad likeability.

Double Fusion – brand examples

Jeep in Tomb Raider
Double Fusion’s work with Jeep and Tomb Raider is a great example of both in-game and cross-promotional games marketing. Jeep were not only featured within Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Legend offering visual clues to the gameplay and being driven by Lara’s cohort and enemies, but Tomb Raider
appeared on the Jeep site. Jeep.com was one of just a few sites to host the excusive Tomb Raider trailer and a flash based game ran on www.jeep.com/games.

Adidas in Power Challenge
Adidas not only featured on stadium signage, scoreboards, player apparel and balls within the game, but Double Fusion also enabled the brand to be incorporated within the gameplay itself. Players could select two different Adidas shoe styles to get different gameplay results, reinforcing the brand attributes of each particular shoe.

Chrysler in Splinter Cell Double Agent
Another automotive case study from Double Fusion provides a further example of a brand being incorporated within the gameplay of a title. In Splinter Cell Double Agent a Chrysler is driven by the main character’s boss and the same car brand initiates the start of the mission; an empty car with its door open is a player’s cue that a character is missing. Car alarms can also be set off to distract the enemy.