About a year ago, OMD Digital introduced in-game advertising for the first time in the Middle East with the Saudi telco Mobily, opening the way for brands to reach their audience through games, well, it could be unfortunate for consumers who see advertising everywhere, but I guess when it’s done probably within context it’s won’t be annoying at all, specially with product placement.
During GITEX 2009, I attended a presentation by Wael Tawfik, Business Development Manager at Tahadi Games, about the current games offered by Tahadi, and what’s in the pipeline. Basically they work closely with international companies to localize popular games around the world to suit the Middle East, so far they’ve introduced Ragnarok, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game based around the ancient Vikings.
I’m not a big fan of games, but I believe that Ragnarok is pretty cool and the ideal solution to anyone who enjoys spending hours playing with others, I used to be one of those gaming geeks in the past but not anymore! But for a marketing perspective I believe it’s a good addition to the media scene in the Middle East, which is still falling behind in terms on online advertising spends with approximately 1% of the total budgets go online, will in-game advertising help in boosting spends on online, who knows!
Worldwide, in-game advertising is already happening, it a multi-million business that is expected to become a multi-billion medium with hundreds of millions around the world hooked up to the games, nothing will stop it from growing, hopefully we will witness this in the Middle East as well. I came across a corner for an Xbox car racing game and I noticed the billboards of Puma and Pirelli on the sides of racing tracks.
The beauty of in-game advertising that it can be anything, it can be a billboard on the side of the road, or a product users use inside the game like a phone or a hat or a drink, it can be an image or a video, so it can br an integral part of the game and users will be engaged with it.
