Advertising in mobile games - A summary

This post is kinda like a summary. Of everything I’ve talked about advertising on mobile games so far. A couple of my friends asked me to explain mobile games, the concept of advertising in mobile games, how they do it, why they do it, and of course some official facts and figures to back up my claims. Though I’ve talked about mobile games and advertising in mobile games quite often in this blog, I thought it would be nice to summarize it in just one post to make it easier for my readers. So, here it goes.

If you were to rate some of the most favorite pastimes of mobile users, mobile video games would certainly be one of them. From kids to teenagers to adults, everyone likes to spend a little time on mobile games every now and then. And downloading a game to your mobile phone has become ever so easy thanks to mobile advertisers. You have ad funded mobile video games that are free to download and they are very popular among people now. In fact, media analyst Screen Digest predicts that by 2012, over 60 million mobile games will be downloaded per year. That’s a monstrous number which just goes to show the popularity of mobile video games.

There are two ways in which advertisers place their ads in mobile video games. First, ads are placed before and after a game. This is by far the most common form of advertising in mobile video games. You download a game and when you’re about to start playing it, you’ll be shown some ad spots. Then when you finish playing the game, you’ll be shown some more ad spots. This method works well with users as they are not disturbed during the course of the game. Also, advertisers tend to gain from this as there is no way these ads can go unnoticed.

Second method is called product placement. Now, this method is even more refined and the ads are blended seamlessly into the gaming environment. In this method, you’ll not find ads popping up before or after the game. Instead, you’ll find them placed within your game. The soccer players might be wearing Nike jerseys, the boxers might be wearing Adidas shoes, and the signboards might have Microsoft logos. This way, the brands are shown to us in a subtle way and it doesn’t distract our attention on the game at all. So, this method is also pretty popular with advertisers these days.

The mobile advertising industry is growing fast and ad funded mobile games have never been so popular. There are plenty of companies that offer free mobile games for download which are completely ad funded. Going by the popularity of these games, the prediction made by Screen Digest very much looks like a possibility in the next few years.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Games.

0 comments.

Vodacom’s mobile advertising campaigns get encouraging results

Rick Joubert, the man in charge of mobile advertising in Vodacom, recently had something to say about Vodacom’s position in mobile advertising and the edge that mobile advertising can give you over other traditional methods of advertising. Some of the points he made were quite interesting.

To begin with, he says mobile phone is the seventh mass medium in the world today after print, recording, cinema, radio, TV, and the internet. He also says that the amount spent on mobile advertising will soon be as big as online advertising. Also, he feels that mobile advertising is kind of handicapped right now because the industry is not standardized and there is a lack of metrics.

But despite all this, Vodacom’s mobile advertising market in South Africa is going strong like anything. Given below are some of the figures released by Vodacom. Metropolitan Life, a campaign by Vodacom, generates about 100,000 leads per month.

Vodacom’s Nike branded mobile content gets downloaded 84,000 times.

Vodacom’s Steer branded mobile content gets downloaded 52,000 times.

Personal loan products for large banks generate around 35,000 leads per month.

Figures like these can give one a lot of confidence. Especially, for a market that is considered to be in its nascent stage, these figures are very encouraging.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

0 comments.

Adidas and Nike’s mobile advertising campaigns get a staggering response

While some companies have still not taken mobile advertising seriously enough, some companies have gained a lot from mobile advertising. Two of the best examples would be Adidas and Nike.

Jackmyers.com, a B2B media website, posted a report on an Adidas mobile advertising campaign which features famous basketball stars who proclaim that ‘Basketball is a Brotherhood’. The ad campaign targeted teenage boys and girls and has become immensely popular among them. Upon clicking on the text ads they get, mobile users were taken to a mobile site where they can call the stars in the ad campaign, get tailor-made voicemail, special ringtones, and wallpapers. The response from teenagers was phenomenal. Take a look at the numbers.

Five million mobile impressions on the ads.

75,000 page views to the mobile site in the first week.

Over 8000 people opted in.

Thousands of people called their favorite stars, repeatedly.

Nike ran a similar campaign but it was run locally on Vodacam’s VLive! Portal. The portal offered free mobile content and had a great response from mobile users. Take a look at the numbers again.

84,000 downloads and 9200 survey responses.

The funny thing is, Nike only expected about 15,000 downloads and 4000 survey responses when it launched the campaign. But the results exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations.

A research conducted by Jackmyers.com also stated that mobile advertising is the one that’s most likely to get better results than any other form of advertising, at very little cost.

This is great news for mobile advertisers all over the world. Like I’ve always stated, targeted mobile advertising is a sure shot way to get better returns. And with time, things will only get better.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

0 comments.