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The Marketleap Report
Vol. 1 - Issue #8 - May
11, 2001
Inbox Gaming - Mail with Extra
Brand
By Keith Boswell
Your sacred e-mail address is a haven.
Away from the other mailboxes, where mail piles up
for a once weekly cleaning, rests a place you call
your own and share with very few. But when your friend
attaches a game called Elf Bowling to a quick note,
your space suddenly becomes the brand space.
Elf Bowling is a fun little game. You can spend minutes
playing shuffle-puck with randy elves, chuckling at
their reactions to your taunts.
CDNow sponsored the application the
past two Christmases in an effort to reach a wider
audience. Their logo rests right by the game controls,
a link to their web site embedded within.
Advertising and gaming have met on the net. Sponsors
are grabbing eye space in complex games as the emerging
industry of viral games distributed via the web and
e-mail proves successful in generating new customers
and high response rates.
Companies like YAYA, KPE and Wild Tangent are helping
spread brand awareness through games and interactive
content that are easily spread via e-mail. Sony, Ford, Burger
King, ESPN, Nike and Electronic Arts are a few corporations
now employing advergames.
Because banner ad response rates continue to under-deliver,
advertising is spreading into game sponsorship as
a more attractive outlet for generating web site visitors.
Games take time. Time spent in front of the brand.
Companies are realizing it's well worth the money
spent for your time and all your friends' time.
Jack Daniels sponsored an online pool hall decorated
in their finest bar accoutrements where players could
play free virtual pool. Ford let 'Netizens race one
of their SUVs on the moon. That campaign brought 40%
of the game-playing audience to Ford's web site.
When you play a racing game today on the Wild Tangent
web site, the experience rivals game units like Playstation
with hairpin turns, fluid graphics and acceleration.
3D sports games challenge players to improve their
skills. Arcade, strategy and classic games - whatever
you prefer - are free to play once you download the
software.
The lesson? Capture and surround your
visitors with a message. Allow them to enjoy something
enough that they are willing to wade through the advertising
and possibly gain interest in the message. The model
is the same as television, except the distribution
is free if attached to e-mail.
Signing over personal information becomes less of
an issue when driven by a welcome boost from the sponsor
and contest. Advertisers will be waiting when we cross
the finish line. Where will you go now that you've
won? Which brand will sponsor you?
Gaming offers the hook of TV. It's competitive, like
organized sports. Players relish winning, in solo
and group competition. If you find a game you love,
you'll spend hours playing.
But it's your space. Which do you prefer? The streams
of messages, dribbling in with quiet aplomb? Or the
roar of the crowd as you sink the winning putt? The
sponsor behind door number two needs to know. And
now a word from...
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