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Inspiring Change: Innovative Methods & Integrated Advertising

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At the ESOMAR Online Research conference, Alison Bryant of Smarty Pants, Katie Bessiere of MTV Networks and Brian Levine of Innerscope Research discussed the use of biometrics to demonstrate that casual gaming is serious business.

Sixty two participants, ages 14 to 34, were invited to select a game to play while wearing a wireless biometric vest, while having their pupil dilation and attention measured. The key conclusion was that participants had 95-99% focused attention with games, compared to 80% for TV programming and as low as 30% for TV commercials. People pay attention when playing games.

Three conclusions from the testing of video pre-roll advertising:

1. Focus on action games. The study hypothesized that there were ad-impact differences between action games vs. cognitive games. This hypothesis was validated, as video prerolls have higher recall when placed before an action game; the cognitive game seems to drive out what was learned in the video preroll. As a result, MTV Networks now classifies games on its sites based on whether they are action or cognitive games, in order to serve up video prerolls before action games.
2. Shorter is better. A 15-second video preroll had double the recall levels of a 30-second preroll, perhaps because the key messaging occurs at the end of video, by which point participants have stopped paying attention in the 30-second spot.
3. Drive synergy between games and brands. Contextually relevant ads in front of nonbranded games provide better recall (e.g., a Burger King ad before an unbranded burger shop game): people who played a game related to the ad actually enjoyed the game 40% more.  MTV now codes games about subject categories to better serve advertisers.

Four conclusions for in-game advertising:

1. Focus on games with high cognition (e.g., word games, games where players must spot the differences between pictures).
2. Target areas of focused attention. Fifteen seconds of focus on the message in the game produced 80% recall. In the U.S., the left side of the game produces better recall than the right side.
3. Integrate with the game brain. Put messaging in areas with higher cognition, such as the loading screen, the menu screen and the rewards screen.
4. Be central to the action. Banner ads are often ignored so brand a scoreboard instead, brand acknowledgement for completing a level.

MTV Networks now has an advergame development handbook that encodes the findings from this research to produce games that better support MTV advertisers. MTV is demonstrating that casual gaming makes for serious advertising.