• by Laurie Sullivan , October 4, 2024

Microsoft has quietly begun to offer ad media buys that combine connected television (CTV) and gaming after discovering 85% of people use "other" devices while watching TV. The top "other" device being gaming content. 

Advertising in gaming has not caught on to match the level of many other media buys such as CTV, Nick Bolt, senior product marketer at Microsoft Advertising, said during a monthly briefing on the company's ads business

“Games are something people actively choice to play,” Bolt said. “When you’re advertising in [gaming], you are reaching people who choose to be there.”

In 2023, Bolt said, viewers spent 1.57 hours on average on CTV vs. 1.48 hours in gaming. 

Projected spend in 2024 for CTV is estimated to reach $30.1 billion in ad dollars, vs. $ 8.5 billion for advertising in gaming for U.S. users above the age of 18, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Microsoft’s gaming audience 60% of users are millennials between the ages between 25 and 49, 70% spend more time with media compared with the general population, and 41% are typically video/CTV streamers.

Bolt said Microsoft also offers 100% rewarded video options but will bring other options into the market. This is the jumping off point, he added. The rewarded video ads are not skippable, but a marketer on the call noted they cannot bypass the ads, but the volume can be turned down, which is the same issues Google’s YouTube has with its ads.

“YouTube has where you could just leave on the video with no volume,” she said. “There's no holding the user to actually engage with the brand.”

She also mentioned Amazon and Twitch because they're “leaning very heavily into these branded experiences,” such as in Fortnite,” she said. “I thought that we would hear about these kinds of in-game interactive branding experiences or influencer companies, but this this sounds like it's more in app ads.”

Microsoft also expanded its Xbox Research division to include game developers in a push to bolster its presence in advertising on gaming platforms. The objective is to gain feedback and insights from in the Xbox ecosystem that could help improve future tools and services. The goal, of course, to grow ad gaming media.