Gamers and advertising
• Concept
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Selling real-world advertising in electronic games/virtual worlds
Showing billboards, posters, vehicles, etc. within a game
Placing products in virtual worlds
Analyzing people’s behavior in virtual worlds
• Typical gamers
– 70% of the 18-34 year-old males
– Spend more time gaming than watching TV
– 90% do not mind in-game advertising, as long as content is
relevant and enhances the gaming experience
GL-eNestlé
Gamers and advertising
• Some figures
– More than $10 billion expected revenue for gaming industry in 2006
($300 million from in-game advertising)
– 6 million paying subscribers for the online game World of Warcraft
– 7 million avatars in the Yahoo! community
– 165’000 residents in the Second Life virtual world
– Typical cost to edit a successful game between 1 and 10 mio Euros
GL-eNestlé
Gamers and advertising
• Virtual world
– Computer-simulated environment where users inhabit and interact
– Most common in massively multiplayer online games (MMOG)
• MMOG
– Computer game supporting thousands of players simultaneously
– Persistent: always available and events happening continually
• Avatars
– Representation of a user in a virtual world
– Icon, picture, 3-D (human) form
GL-eNestlé
Gamers and advertising
• Second Life
– Subscription-based online 3-D virtual reality application
– Residents represented by avatars
– Residents can create, buy and sell content: buildings, avatars,
clothing,… any 3D object
– Economy based on Linden dollars (flexible exchange rate with US$,
trading on LindeX Currency Exchange)
– Residents spend 5 million (real) dollars a month for virtual products
and services; more than 3'000 residents earn an average of
$20'000 (real American ones) a year
GL-eNestlé
Gamers and advertising
• World of Warcraft
– Players come together online and battle against the world and each other
– High level avatars for sale between $500-4000
– 100’000 “Gold farmers” connected 24/24 in China: collecting items and
virtual currency to sell them to other gamers for real world currency
GL-eNestlé
Gamers and advertising
• Issues and concerns
– Anti-commercial feelings from some, fear of “3D spam”
– Privacy issues, as virtual activities can be tracked
– Skepticism about real-world marketing in virtual life, many users
change their personality online and keep the two worlds separate
• Conclusion
– Harvard Business Review: virtually unexplored marketing country
GL-eNestlé