In-game ad man calls for standardised metrics on virtual exposure
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UK-- In-game advertising network IGA is calling on rivals, games publishers and brand owners to agree a standard for measuring and reporting exposure to ads within videogames.
Ed Bartlett, a co-founder of the company, which serves ads in a range of online games for PCs and Playstation 3 consoles, believes standardised metrics are needed to build on the millions of ad dollars invested in the medium to date.
Emarketer estimates that $295m was spent on in-game ads last year in the US alone, and the research firm predicts this figure will reach $650m by 2012.
“Look at the way the market is growing – it's been incredibly quick,” says Bartlett. “Standardised metrics are a natural part of the market's evolution.”
IGA is touting its approach as the ideal standard – reporting an ad impression only when the gamer has been exposed to a creative for more than two seconds.
This is in line with the concept of dwell times used by the outdoor advertising industry, which is the nearest comparison in-game advertising can draw with traditional media, what with its inventory of virtual billboards, posters and pitch hoardings, says Bartlett.
Other approaches – reporting aggregated parts of seconds for example – are “not effective in our view”, says Bartlett.
“It takes two-to-three seconds if you want to read and take in a brand message,” he says.
Bartlett points to research, carried out by Nielsen on behalf of IGA, that found in-game ad exposures of over two seconds generating an average 27% increase in key ad metrics, such as ad noticeability, recall and fit, when matched against exposures of less than one second.
But he insists IGA is looking for a debate on the issue – not to force its viewpoint on others. “The research states our case pretty well, but it's not a straightforward subject,” he says.
Author: Brian Tarran
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