Ads in Games Suck. Let's Fix That!

Advertisers have discovered a new place to promote their products and services: video games, social games and mobile games, which nearly half of all of consumers now play. While it’s no surprise that advertising has found a foothold in this rapidly expanding market, the current approaches lack innovation and simply reinforce everything that we dislike about advertising: irrelevant content, distracting placement or interrupted game play.

One of the most egregious examples is the many free games that leverage advertising platforms like Apple’s iAd or Google’s AdMob. When users download free game apps, they are presented with ads with content that don’t relate to the game. Accidentally clicking on the ad, takes the player out of the game. To “get rid” of the ads and potential distraction, users purchase the game.

Let’s think about this for a minute. When the primary goal of a user becomes “getting rid” of an ad, chances are pretty good that they’re not associating a positive experience with the product or service promoted by the ad. This is NOT what advertisers want. Add to this the increasingly disturbing revelations of how traditional advertising cannot be trusted with our data and the lack of control that advertisers have in placing their ads and you have a recipe for doing something better.

Advertisers want to invest in ads that create positive experiences and drive actual behavior because the ads are presenting their product and service in a compelling way. What if advertisements were as positive and engaging as the games being played? 

What if the game was the advertisement?

In this article I’ll present a new approach to advertising: Knowsy?. Knowsy is a patented brand engagement platform disguised as an incredibly fun game. Depending on your perspective, Knowsy is an advertising platform that is also a gaming platform. Or a gaming platform that is also an advertising platform. Or a choice modeling market research platform that helps advertisers and brands understand the preferences of their customers in a manner that puts them in complete control of their brand. And from any perspective, Knowsy is a dramatic departure from traditional approaches to ad placement: As the first “gamified” advertising platform, Knowsy enables advertisers to cost effectively reach the coveted demographic of people who have literally grown up with games.

Not convinced? Let’s explore some examples of good games transformed into bad advertisements, and then we’ll see how a game that is an ad makes playing with ads fun.

Making Bad Ads in Games Easy

The iAd platform was a predictable outcome of the massive success of the iPhone, iPad and iTouch. However, it didn't start out as a success. In early 2011, many media outlets reported that the fill rates for iAds were in steep decline. Marketers were reportedly unhappy with campaign delays, the 8-week long production cycle (inception to conception) and the fact that Apple refrained from informing advertisers where their ads will appear or allow them to limit where their ads will run.  

Marketers know whom they need to target and typically have an idea of where where they need to target and when. However, the ad units in free apps often have little relation to the game being played. Pac-Man Lite, for example, is filled with iAds for online real estate, pharmacies and… apparently randomly chosen ads. 

The ad shown above is presented out of context. The game Pac-Man doesn’t really have anything to do with Zillow, unless you’ve created a customized version of Pac-Man where Pac-Man is a home buyer, the dots are little homes, and the ghosts are a combination of nasty real estate agents chasing after our home buyer with offers for homes that Pac-Man probably can’t afford.

More importantly, consider the player. If the player is a 16 year old girl standing in line waiting for a drink at football game, chances are pretty good that she doesn’t want to see an ad for Zillow. Now, she might be receptive to an ad for a used car, or perhaps a new guitar if she’s in a band – but without the ability to carefully target ads, advertisers who use iAd are just guessing.

Interrupted game play is another downfall of mobile apps. Accidentally touching an AdMob unit in a free game opens a web page and closes the game. Huh? We play games because they are engaging and enjoyable – why else would the market be growing so rapidly? Removing the player from the game she’s having a good time playing is likely not to encourage her to think favorably of your product. 

Bad ad placement isn’t limited to the iAd platform or games, of course. Groupon, Living Social and other daily deal sites are other ways in which traditional advertising gets it wrong.

Consider the following ad from Groupon, which was presented to a 50 year old man. Do you really think a 50 year-old man wants a Botox ad? Doubtful.

So Ads in Games Suck… What now? 

Advertisers want to invest in ads that create positive experiences and drive actual behavior because the ads are presenting their product and service in a compelling way. We know that well-designed games are engaging and compelling. The solution then, is to make ads the game.

In the Knowsy platform, advertisements are leveraged as an integral part of game play—not tacked on to the game board like banner ads or badges. But to really understand Knowsy, we can’t start with ads. Instead, we have to start with games.

The goal of Knowsy is to see how well you know your friends, family, and/or co-workers. Participants play in rounds to guess each other’s favorite items in their individual “like” lists, on topics such as favorite ice cream flavors, iPad apps, sport bikes or vacation destinations. The player who knows the other participants’ likes and dislikes the best wins the game. And playing Knowsy is fun, because learning about your friends, families, and co-workers is an inherently fun activity (at least, for most of us!).

The integration of brands as an essential part of game play is a dramatic departure from traditional approaches to ad placement. As a “gamified” advertising platform, Knowsy enables a variety of advertisers—from worldwide brands to local merchants—to cost effectively reach the not only the rapidly growing demographic of gamers, but the gamers that are actually interested in their products.

Knowsy’s secret secret weapon is that each round of a game generates choice-modeling market research data as players select topics and rank items. When you’re selecting your top five items in your list, Knowsy is recording what you like for analysis. When other players are guessing your items, they’re engaging in a fun, contextually relevant, and engaging experience. 

As Knowsy learns more about players, we’ll learn that Peanut Butter is your favorite flavor of ice cream, Blokus? is your favorite board game, Saturday is your favorite day of the week, and the San Francisco 49ers are your favorite football team. And this means that every ad, every promotion, and everything we offer will be relevant to your personal interests. When you tell Knowsy that your favorite favor of ice cream Peanut Butter , we’ll be able to offer you a coupon for Cookie Dough at the supermarket closest to you that has that flavor in stock (we know where you’re playing), group offers of one pint of ice cream for every player (we know who you’re playing with), and even ways to share ice cream with your friends. We’ll even knowsy (sorry, couldn’t resist) what ads you wish were in our platform, as players can create their own topics and items which are, as you’d guess, downloaded into the Knowsy Knows platform for detailed analysis. 

Ad Games Are Better Than Ads In Games

Ad placement in games isn’t always irrelevant or out of context. Watching Wolverine? in Marvel Universe Online drink several Coca-Cola’s? while chowing down a plate of chicken-fried steak after an especially tough battle with Magneto? might make perfect sense – Wolverine’s mutant healing power means that he can eat or drink just about anything he wants! And if I like Coca-Cola, I can feel pretty good about all the wonderful ways in which my favorite hero matches my preferences.

Unless, of course, I’m a diehard Pepsi? fan. And even if I might wonder just a bit why Wolverine is drinking Coca-Cola, chances are pretty good that even when my favorite Marvel comic character is drinking Coca-Cola I’m not going to rush out and buy one.

Either way, without knowing me, Marvel Universe is simply auctioning off ad space in games to the highest bidder (good for them), while Coca-Cola and Pepsi are left wondering if their ads are being shown in a contextually relevant, appealing way (not so good for them).

Which is why Knowsy has the potential to dramatically change how we think of ads, games, engagement, market research and loyalty. Knowsy is everything current advertising platforms aren’t:

• Knowsy is relevant. Because brands are integrated into game play and chosen by the player, brand exposure is always relevant to a naturally targeted and self-selected audience.
• Knowsy is immersive and engaging. Players develop positive perceptions of “advertised” products and services precisely because they are having fun learning about their friends and other celebrities.
• Knowsy is market research. Knowsy’s game play is backed by a rich data warehouse tracking preferences of your target market. Over time, we’ll Knowsy (sorry, couldn’t resist) that Phish Food? is your favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry’s, that you like Chablis more than Chardonnay and that your favorite action movie of all time was Terminator.

Knowsy isn’t just fun. It’s your brand’s secret weapon for building awareness and brand engagement.

To Learn More About Knowsy

To learn more about Knowsy drop me a line.

To learn more about the various properties of Twinkies, check out this Prezi: https://prezi.com/xuyit0-jjzsq/twinkie-project/.

About the Author

Luke Hohmann is the Founder and CEO of Conteneo. Phish Food? really is his favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry’s, which might come in handy when you play Knowsy.