In-game advertising

In-game advertising is about the use of computer and video games to deliver an advertising message. Statistics has it that in 2005, spending on in-game advertising was US $ 56million and this figure is estimated to grow to a staggering US$ 1 Billion by 2014!

In-game advertising is seen as an idea way of targeting the younger demographic – age 20 to 35. This group is viewed as showing a preference for computer and video games over TV. There have been complaints of in-game advertising being invasive, sometimes calling in-game advertising software as spyware. The potential of this form of advertising has been recognized with Neilsen Media Research having a new video games rating service.

There are primarily two types of in-game advertising –

Static, and,

Dynamic

Static in-game advertising

In this form of in-game advertising, the advertisement was placed into the game by programmers. Once it was place, it couldn’t be moved. The first such ad was seen in the 1978 computer game Adventureland by Scott Adams, who inserted an ad for his forthcoming game Pirate Adventure .

Dyanmic in-game advertising

With the growth of the internet and availability of increased bandwidth, it has been possible for dynamic in-game advertising to find a place in the in-game advertising arena. In this method, the ad can be dynamically altered by the advertising agency. Ads can be modified according to Geographic Location, time of the day etc. A most recent example of dynamic in-game advertising was an ad featuring the then Presidential hopeful Barack Obama in the game Burnout Paradise.

The advertising industry’s reaction to in-game advertising has been, not surprisingly, positive. In-game advertising is seen as a very effective way of reaching the 20 -35 demographic. This is especially relevant in context of the falling TV viewer numbers.

The games industry has no gripes either, as it represents a new revenue stream. Industry figures suggest that in-game advertisements contribute extra 20% – 33 % profit per game sold. Game publishers see this as a key contribution to cover their game development costs.

The next time we play a video or computer game watch out for that in-game advertisement!

Mobile search wars

The telecom companies are colliding head-on in competition for control of the consumer mobile search business.
Telecom carriers, handset manufacturers, publishers, directory and yellow pages companies, local search companies, Silicon Valley giants and a foray of start-ups are squaring off to contend for the title of mobile search champion. Each is trying to convince marketers that it is the natural inheritor of mobile search !
“Mobile search is a battle to define perhaps the most important new interface with the consumer,” says a eMarketer Senior Analyst and the author of the new report, Mobile Search: Clash of the Titans. “Whoever cracks the consumer and commercial code for delivering and monetizing relevant answers for people on the go will secure a license to print money, at least for a time.”
Depending on a researcher’s particular bias toward telecom, Web or technology factors, the published forecasts for mobile search vary from $1.5 billion by 2011 to over $11 billion by 2008 according to research.
Forecasts says that the general mobile ad spending market — along with ad spending that supports mobile multimedia — should reach over $13.8 billion worldwide during the same period.

Mobile Advertising Spending

Of that total, mobile search is expected to account for 17%.

Worldwide Mobile Search and Revenues

May be now, the figures might not look very big compared to that of the online search market. But, it carries a promise of radically changing the way people access search information and make buying decisions. If seen this way, the mobile search market goes beyond this specific search industry.
Regardless of its relatively small size, mobile will continue to attract investment and talent because it is one the best platforms for connecting marketers to consumers with short-term or immediate purchase intent.

Mobile entertainment revenue worldwide

For instance, Informa predicts that global mobile entertainment sales will reach over $38 billion by 2011. Of that market, the top three subcategories are music ($13.6 billion by 2011), mobile video and TV ($8.3 billion) and mobile games ($7.2 billion).

“The days when mobile search need only organize a mobile carrier’s content retail store are rapidly drawing to a close,” say experts.
Too much money, talent and technology are moving into the mobile marketing space to expect that users, let alone advertisers, will stay content to search within the walled gardens that predominate today.

Statistics Courtesy :

emarketer report : Mobile Search: Clash of the Titans

Mobile: Can we deliver value and still make profit ?!

The world is becoming so connected and as experts envision, if the Internet was the killer application in the nineties, it is definitely the mobile phone for the current era. So many big players like Google, Amazon and Microsoft are investing huge sums into research on mobile technology. If e-mail was the killer application for the internet, the one for mobile phones has always been voice. There have been so many technology and content players trying to serve data but very few have struck gold. So far, the only way companies are making money is through value-added services like caller tunes and so on, but at a very high cost.

The challenge is whether you will be able to deliver services on mobiles the Google way- free of cost to the end user and still making a profitable business. Of course, the mobile doesn’t have much of a real estate when compared to that of a computer monitor. But if you can get it there, there is nothing like it!

One day when I was about to start for shopping, I wanted to find out the best deals in town. I just went ahead and started browsing the news paper for an advertisement on some apparel offers, which I had seen a few days back. I had to go through newspapers at least 5 or 6 days old for over half an hour to find the advertisement with the details of the offer, address and other info.

1. Firstly, what if there was a small code in every advertisement or some smart tag where in I just punch the code of an interesting advertisement in my mobile (non-camera mobile) and message it to a toll-free/local number and I get the vital details of that offer back in my mobile immediately? In case I have a camera mobile, I just take a picture of the smart tag in the advertisement and message it to get all the relevant details like type of offer, address, phone number, etc. So, whenever I come across an advert in newspapers or hoardings or the TV or Internet, I needn’t remember a thing. I just take a pic or send the message and I get the necessary info permanently stored for my future use.

2. Practically speaking, very few people will actually go and do whatever was there in the previous point. There is a good chance that I see it and I miss the code or I am not in a position to note it at that time. What if I had a search engine, which just searches and lists advertisements and offers? When clicked, it takes me to the original seller. And if necessary, I can send the details to my mobile or email it or bookmark it over or save it in some form for future reference. This way, we can maintain the service for free and charge the seller for every potential inquiry or click. After browsing for couple of hours, the closest thing I could find was http://www.ixigo.com/ which is a similar search engine for offers but only on travel business. These people list the deals & offers and the rest of transaction is done in the actual airlines website (say a jetairways.com or spicejet.com). So there is zero liability.

3. If the same search engine is available on mobile phones, it is the best someone can get. I go out for shopping to a ‘X’ showroom and find that I don’t like anything. Once I come out, I am not left with much choice. If I had a search engine on my mobile, which is simple and intuitive, I can probably search for offers around that area and then check them out. It just becomes a point of right information at the right time to make it profitable for all the stake holders.

This is just a rough idea. But if we can find out the loopholes and build a business model out of this, it could turn out to be a success story.

One company which is doing something similar to this is mginger.com . Mginger sends targeted advertisements based on the profile of the user. Mginger adds value by:

• furnishing users with offers relating to the choice he/she has given.
• paying the users for receiving those ads by sharing a part of its profit.

Even here, it is more of a “push” model and there is lot of scope in this space if we can make it a two-way communication!

Lets us wait and see what the future looks like…

Mobile Advertising

With the announcement of 3G service in several countries, Mobile Advertising is poised to grow exponentially. This medium is expected to have a larger penetration in emerging markets, even more than internet penetration.

All Mobile Carriers, Portals, Games Content, SMS providers, Mobile Social Networking and  Application providers will be able to participate as Publishers and earn a lot of money by monetizing their traffic.

Advertisers get to target their message to a widespread consumer audience and assess its performance.They will be able to use the formats of Text, Image, Video, SMS,..etc to comeout with their creatives.

Technologically there is a challenge of rendering Ad images to various types of Handsets, Screen sizes, form Factors, etc , so that the Image is legible. Also there is a challenge of tracking performance of Ads and providing various Pay-Per-Action methods.

The opportunity is big and some companies have already announced their plans to be in this space such as RevenueMantra.com, Mkhoj.com, ZestAds etc…