Mittwoch, 2. April 2014
Montag, 31. März 2014
Virtual worlds: Ways of in-game advertising.
The video game industry is a multi-billion dollar business. No other sector has experienced the same explosive growth, one can not overestimate the enormous amount of money which is put in and made from that particular industry. More than half of all Americans (58%) play video games, the average US household owns at least one gaming device (PC, console, smartphone). Gaming is not just for guys anymore: 45% of all video gamers are female (Entertainment Software Association, 2013). With a total spending of 20.77 billion (!!!) dollars in 2012 this market has to be carefully taken care of.
From my experience there are three ways a company (or organization) can use video games to present advertising to audiences. The target audience of certain games are very specific in their interests (psychographics more than demographics): football simulations are played by a different audience than first person shooters or role-playing simulations.
#1: Use brands, their models and aura
The easiest and most subtile way of in-game advertising is branding. The use of Adidas-sportswear in Fifa13, suprisingly accurate (yet not branded) car-models in GTA 4 and very convincing and real-looking rifles in Battlefield 4 are very good examples for the power of brands in the developing process. Mostly developers ask brands for permission to use their models because they want their games to be more realistic.
Sometimes, video game developers want to profit from real-life brands without having the permission to use them. What they do is creating a similar brand because they don't want to to loose the effect of real brands.
#2: Direct advertising
Subliminal perception is the next big thing. And so is direct in-game advertising. You may not notice it consciously but it effects your behaviour more than you think.
#3: Games that train for the job
The public may not be aware of this yet, but computer games are predicting our skills in future jobs, at least according to the U.S. Army. It is not a secret that the military is looking for new recruits in the gaming world. The skills needed for sterning a drone are quite similar with the skills shown in first person shooters like Battlefield. Therefore the U.S. Army launched a free game called "America's Army" (download it here!) to simulate real-life war to (1) advertise their "cool" job and (2) to spot potential early, even before recruitment.
From my experience there are three ways a company (or organization) can use video games to present advertising to audiences. The target audience of certain games are very specific in their interests (psychographics more than demographics): football simulations are played by a different audience than first person shooters or role-playing simulations.
#1: Use brands, their models and aura
The easiest and most subtile way of in-game advertising is branding. The use of Adidas-sportswear in Fifa13, suprisingly accurate (yet not branded) car-models in GTA 4 and very convincing and real-looking rifles in Battlefield 4 are very good examples for the power of brands in the developing process. Mostly developers ask brands for permission to use their models because they want their games to be more realistic.
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| Adidas in Fifa13 |
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| The "UBERMACHT"-SentinelXS in GTA 4 |
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| BMW M3 (real life) |
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| Nuka-Cola vending machine in Fallout 3 |
#2: Direct advertising
Subliminal perception is the next big thing. And so is direct in-game advertising. You may not notice it consciously but it effects your behaviour more than you think.
#3: Games that train for the job
The public may not be aware of this yet, but computer games are predicting our skills in future jobs, at least according to the U.S. Army. It is not a secret that the military is looking for new recruits in the gaming world. The skills needed for sterning a drone are quite similar with the skills shown in first person shooters like Battlefield. Therefore the U.S. Army launched a free game called "America's Army" (download it here!) to simulate real-life war to (1) advertise their "cool" job and (2) to spot potential early, even before recruitment.
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| "America's Army" |
Blog post from two weeks ago: DaVita Clinical Research and #InspiredToHelp
Talking about successful social media campaigns... a pretty difficult task given that we mostly remember campaigns that failed and backfired. And that's okay, because it's funny. We'd rather remember someone sharing their funny #MCDstory instead of dealing with the problems of African children by tweeting about the #waterislife campaign.
A very dificult topic to talk about is healthcare, especially when it comes to long-term diseases. DaVita Clinical Research is focussing its work on kidney diseases and launched a social media campaign in March 2014. DaVita Clinical Research is a research institution for kidney diseases that is always looking for participants in their trials and is encouraging scientific exchange.
The campaign contained he hashtag #InspiredToGive and created eighteen videos with (former) participants talking about their experiences with clinical trials and (most importantly) what inspired them to gie their time to clinical research. It allowed participants as well as researchers to share videos and pictures from their experiences with DaVita.
At the same time, DaVita asked communities what inspired them to give back. The results can be seen on their Instagram and Youtube channels. The overall message of the campaign was that anyone can participate in clinical trials and the personal appoach was chosen quite nicely, because audiences are tired of healthcare companies talking TO them. There is not enough caffeine in the world to stay awake during another "We need you for research"-campaign by some big medical association. If there is, on the other hand, content that shows real people talking about their real life experiences with clinical trials, trust-building videos of good-looking researchers and community representatives that talk about how much a clinical trial supports public health, you are more likely drawn to search for more information about that particular institution.
Healthcare companies suffer from a serious lack of trust which is reflected in decreasing participation numbers. In that case it is just a great idea to meet the public's concerns with every-day testimonials and trustworthy statements about how rewarding it is to help sick people by participating in a clinical trial.
A very dificult topic to talk about is healthcare, especially when it comes to long-term diseases. DaVita Clinical Research is focussing its work on kidney diseases and launched a social media campaign in March 2014. DaVita Clinical Research is a research institution for kidney diseases that is always looking for participants in their trials and is encouraging scientific exchange.
The campaign contained he hashtag #InspiredToGive and created eighteen videos with (former) participants talking about their experiences with clinical trials and (most importantly) what inspired them to gie their time to clinical research. It allowed participants as well as researchers to share videos and pictures from their experiences with DaVita.
At the same time, DaVita asked communities what inspired them to give back. The results can be seen on their Instagram and Youtube channels. The overall message of the campaign was that anyone can participate in clinical trials and the personal appoach was chosen quite nicely, because audiences are tired of healthcare companies talking TO them. There is not enough caffeine in the world to stay awake during another "We need you for research"-campaign by some big medical association. If there is, on the other hand, content that shows real people talking about their real life experiences with clinical trials, trust-building videos of good-looking researchers and community representatives that talk about how much a clinical trial supports public health, you are more likely drawn to search for more information about that particular institution.
Healthcare companies suffer from a serious lack of trust which is reflected in decreasing participation numbers. In that case it is just a great idea to meet the public's concerns with every-day testimonials and trustworthy statements about how rewarding it is to help sick people by participating in a clinical trial.
Sonntag, 23. März 2014
Samstag, 22. März 2014
New York Part 1
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| First impressions of New York |
Not the worst thing to do on the first day in NY: New York Knicks vs. Milwaukee Bucks at Madison Square Garden
And the Empire State Building
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| East - East River and Brooklyn |
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| South - Downtown Manhattan and the World Trade Center |
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| Shadow of the Empire State Building |
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| North East |
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| North - Uptown Manhattan |
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| North West - Uptown Manhattan and Hudson River |
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| West - Hudson River and New Jersey |
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| Downtown Manhattan, Broklyn on the left, New Jersey on the right and Liberty Island south of Hudson River |
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