Aug
21
Bell boasted of impressive success with a recent “Race the Pros” game that was promoted on MSN and FoxSports online and some Fox Sports TV programming. The game was designed by WildTangent and was especially appealing to NASCAR fans.
The branding effectiveness of the Dodge RTP game was measured in a controlled test of visitors to FoxSports, where users could download and play the game. Research firm AdFactor compared a group of those who played the game with a control group of visitors in the same profile who had not. It represents one of the most comprehensive studies of the effectiveness of games as marketing vehicles.
In the car selling game, most buyers quickly narrow their scope to four or five brands or models for consideration, so the battle among car makers is to get their cars into that “consideration set” as early as possible in the consumers buying cycle. Thus, “top of mind” brand awareness is an important metric for this industry and among those who played the RTP title, that unaided awareness of Dodge and other Daimler Chrysler brands went up 27.6% and 24.7%, respectively. Even better, the “purchase consideration” metric for Dodge went up 19.6%, which means that the game specifically helped put the clients’ cars into the consideration set.
Bell argues that marketing efforts like gaming help get his brands into the pop culture ethos and let the consumer experience the brand, and these qualities have become key. Interactive media like games also get the client thousands of sales leads.
That level of interactivity and lead generation available to custom game titles is one of the things missing from in-game product placement plans, argues Dave Madden, EVP of marketing, Wild Tangent. He is seeing much more money and attention going into custom games from clients like Chrysler and Nike. “In order for brands to move people along from awareness to actually purchasing and recommending their products they have to build deep dialogue which allows for persistent relationships and feedback from consumers.”
Bell agrees that in-game placements are not ready for major investment by advertisers like himself. “We’re not that interested,” he said at the Jupiter conference. “We did it with Tony Hawk, but it’s got to be measurable and it’s got to stimulate more interest.”
