• by Kate Kaye , December 10, 2002

There’s no shortage of contestants in the world of advergaming. And the range of opinions on just how and why advertisers can benefit from lending their brands to online gaming experiences seems just as broad as the playing field.

Nabisco was among the first to venture on the scene in 1997 with its popular CandyStand.com site featuring a multitude of arcade, trivia, and sports games, some of which are actually centered around products like Oreo cookies and LifeSavers; others of which merely reference Nabisco brands through logo components within the games.

Auto brands including Toyota and Porsche, media firms like National Geographic, and even John Deere have marketed through online games. Still, consumer packaged goods advertisers such as Pepsi, Heineken USA, and Post cereals remain the champions of advergaming. According to Forrester Research, advergaming will generate $1 billion by 2005.

Advergaming options range from developing customized, branded game experiences featuring product-focused content to running ads during or in-between game playing sessions to less costly, more generic games that can be sponsored by any advertiser. These may be engaging to a wide array of online users who have been known to spend hours immersing themselves in sponsored game worlds, but the question is “what’s the value to the brand?” At this point, assesses Jupiter Research analyst, Jay Horwitz, “It’s very difficult to measure impact.”

Advertisers are seeing a tangible return on investment in the form of data captured through online game registrations, though. Information such as email addresses, age, sex, income level and locale can all be gathered in exchange for a free round of roulette or extreme snowboarding (usually accompanied by a chance to win prizes).

“That’s where the client really reaps the rewards,” comments Dan Ferguson, creative director and cofounder of interactive marketing firm Blockdot, the folks behind the memorable Elf Bowling game.

Lynne Viera, creative director at marketing agency, BaseSix, finds that advertisers she’s worked with, including HBO, have “a lot of interest in any opportunity to go outside the box and capture data.” Besides the fact that users get free game time and out of it, the opportunity to get friends involved through viral components of advergames is also a plus for consumers. “When asking people for information, you have to be careful you’re giving something in return,” cautions Viera.

The draw towards advergaming for data capture is an indication of its popularity with adults. Stresses Garry Kitchen, president and CEO of Skyworks Technologies, the digital entertainment company that created Nabisco’s CandyStand site and the currently-running Toyota 4Runner Challenge game, “We are not designing games for the core Playstation gamer; we target broad casual online gamers.” After all, says Kitchen, “everybody eats Oreos.”

Skyworks’ games are mainly housed on advertiser client sites. However, according to Ferguson, who considers this approach to be “myopic,” “the big change is to have games on game sites.” Blockdot makes a point of launching clients’ advergames on game content sites across the Web, including its own Kewlbox site.

In the end, consumer motivation plays a key role in determining branding capabilities of advergames. Whether the user is seeking out the brand site in particular, or a gaming experience first and foremost, “It takes significant creative skills to put a brand front and center,” according to Horwitz who concludes that the branding value of advergames is “dubious because the consumer is playing the game, not playing the brand as such.” Stay tuned for a follow up piece on how specific advertisers are integrating advergaming into their online campaigns.