Don’t you just love Old Spice?

Thus far in our marketing class, we have talked about the importance of  the macro-environment and its affect upon consumer’s and their behaviour. One aspect that has really intrigued me, is perception of products and consumer’s behaviour.

A recent article I read stated that “IGA and Nielsen surveyed 1300 gamers who were exposed to ads served by IGA. The brands shown included Taco Bell, Jeep and Wrigley. Researchers found that after seeing an ad in-game, gamers had more favorable opinions of the brands seen in the game (61%) and also increased their brand recall (44% increase).”

This is a clear indication that the right ad, in the right game, could have unbeatable response from the consumer base! A great example of this is the video game Madden ’11. Old Spice Bodywash has sponsored the world’s most popular football game for a number of years and although its extensive branding on the game may appear to be too much for some, I like many other sports fans out there like to see this sort of marketing occuring.

Old Spice Swagger Ratings

I think that it makes the game seem more realistic when it shows red zone statistics and plays the Old Spice jingle after every touchdown. It even has a player ranking upon their level of “Old Spice Swagger”. These are all subtle ways to influence the buyers behaviour and perception for when they next go to purchase Bodywash.

Most people seem to think of most in-game ads as simple display ads, but marketers don’t have to think of them as “just” display ads. These in-game billboards are shown for a minimum of 2 seconds. If you think about that, it is at least the same time frame as a billboard seen in the real world except for one thing: the consumer playing a game is more engaged in that reality than consumers driving along the highway. IGA’s research showed that 2-second ads shown in-game increased how noticed the ads were by 100% over ads shown for only 1 second; brand recall increased 42% for these quick ads.