How Video Games Can Help Mobile Marketers Drive Engagement
Discover what mobile advertisers can learn from the gaming industry’s ability to capture customer attention and engage them.
The gaming industry is growing rapidly. One reason for its growth is its ability to capture consumers’ full attention and keep them engaged. Mobile advertisers can learn a lot from the industry’s growth. Here, Paul Coggins, CEO, of Adludio, explains what mobile advertisers can learn from video games to succeed.
Like many digital sectors, the gaming industry has seen its slow-and-steady growth shift into overdrive thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The industry is now worth more than the movies and music markets combined, according to Accenture, and has been adding hundreds of millions of new players every year for the past few years. Indeed, almost another half a billion new players are expected again by the end of 2023.
It is clear then that gaming is no longer just about predominantly young males. Female gamers have quickly become a major demographic, not to mention Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X, who have all taken to gaming in their droves. The rise of mobile gaming globally, in particular, has made this all a reality.
The gaming world’s ability to capture consumers’ full attention is where advertisers across the digital industry should be looking for inspiration. We are all familiar with the importance of the attention economy in the future of digital advertising, and engagement is the ultimate form of attention. When consumers engage, they have not just seen the ad or the piece of content but have chosen to interact with it physically. This means they are far more likely to internalize and recall the message you’re trying to deliver. So, while gaming, your eyes are transfixed, and you actively engage with the game in question. Brands have to go where the eyeballs are, and the gaming industry knows how to get eyeballs on screens.
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It is unsurprising, then, that many verticals are exploring in-game advertising, which has been a multi-billion dollar industry since the early 2010s. This includes luxury retailers such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton, which have recently explored selling branded products as in-game items, and fast-food brands like Chipotle, which has used in-game worlds as promotional platforms. Not to mention the use of in-game digital advertising in sports games. It is also likely that the space will continue to grow as brands start exploring the opportunities of the Metaverse.
Mobile’s Rules of Engagement
Right now, for mobile advertisers, there is a lot they can learn from video game design. Indeed, the problem with the mobile advertising space at the moment is that it is oversaturated, with users being bombarded with repetitive and forgettable ads. For example, If you go on to a platform like Facebook and see an ad, you will likely scroll past that ad quickly nine out of ten times. I would challenge anybody to remember a non-interactive ad they have seen on Facebook today. On the other hand, ads that deliver an immersive and interactive experience are guaranteed to increase recall. This is because it taps into kinaesthetic learning, which commits experiences to memory, and ads that are more likely to be remembered are more likely to be acted on.
Therefore, taking a page out of gaming’s book, mobile advertisers can encourage engagement by making their ads intuitive and interactive. It could be as simple as using a swipe function to use a cricket bat in an ad for the Cricket World Cup or an interactive tennis racket to promote Wimbledon. It is all about using the interactions available on mobile and making them unique to the message and the experience the brand is trying to deliver. And, much like the gaming world, you are using interactivity and immersion to engage the user.
Even a medium like a video, which is already an immersive experience, can benefit from interactivity. Video is much better at telling a story than a static ad, and interactive elements can help to draw people into that story. Videos that place a valuable engagement mechanism at the start increase the value of the story to the consumer while drawing them in to see the message displayed. For users primed with the level of engagement possible on games, comparable stimulation may be needed for the greatest effect.
Seamless immersion is also critical to game design, and mobile marketers should make this a priority. While the rollout of 5G will ultimately help deliver ultra-fast, high-definition ad media, marketers need to think about the enjoyability of their ads on current channels. Otherwise, they risk losing positive sentiment and meaningful relationships with the customer.
Can I Have Your Attention, Please?
Finding ways of attracting audiences on mobile is especially important now targeting and tracking via third-party cookies is on the way out. Although Google has indeed postponed the cookieless deadline until the end of 2024, the potential of creative data in expanding measurability and engagement far outperforms that of third-party cookies. So, the time is now to start taking a different approach and instead start maximizing attention.
Indeed, the other reason why attracting attention is so important to advertisers is because it offers all of the metrics that brand advertising is about, including higher recall and sentiment. Engagement ties in well with all those metrics, and the best way to engage is through some sort of interactivity. On mobile, that means utilizing the phone and the functionality of the phone in a way that you can address those metrics.
Whether it is a touch or a swipe, consumers are immersing themselves in the brand and the message it is trying to deliver. This anonymous data can be stored historically and be used to paint a clearer picture of the campaign’s performance, building a greater body of reference material from which to inform future creatives.
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The Importance of Having Fun
Advertisers can learn a lot from the stickiness of games, from the immersion delivered by the gaming world, and about the engagement that consumers have with the gaming world.
It is also just about making brands fun and avoiding dull and uninteresting designs. Gaming is built for enjoyment and can be harnessed to bring mobile experiences to life. Not to mention that the winning formula behind a successful video game is its ability to be immersive — brands can learn an awful lot from taking the same approach.
What major inspirations have you drawn from the gaming industry’s ability to grab people’s attention and engage them? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Image Source: Shutterstock
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