Why you should not miss out on a gaming audience
Gaming is ever-growing. The misconception that gaming is solely for cooped-up teenagers alone in their rooms is being deconstructed by our partners at smartclip. The omnipresence of readily accessible devices makes gaming feasible for anyone. Whether it be entertaining the businessperson on their commute to work or angry birds on the iPad to stop the crying children, gaming is for everyone.
Quote
“There’s no doubt mobile has changed the game, quite literally, when it comes to video games. It has made gaming accessible to those who don’t own gaming hardware, allowing more people than ever before to play, interact, and connect. With mobile gaming, people have a gaming console in their pockets and can play without the investment into additional gaming tech and hardware, offering a low barrier to entry and greater accessibility.” – Jordan Shlachter Head of Research, Activision Blizzard Media
What is casual gaming?
A common misconception about gaming is that one needs all this technology, servers, consoles, gaming chairs and so much more. The reality is very different, especially when it comes to casual gaming, it is straightforward.
In their whitepaper, smartclip defines casual gaming as follows:
“A mass-market video game that is fun and easy to play, requiring minimal time commitment and designed to appeal to players of all ages and skill levels. Casual games are characterised by their simple gameplay, highly visual nature, few buttons/controls/rules, and easy accessibility via mobile devices or PCs.”
Why should you be advertising on gaming platforms?
In 2022 smartlcip’s smartx platform found that the overall revenue produced from gaming-only campaigns was 39% higher in the first half of the year compared to that of 2021[i].
Not only is gaming a lucrative platform to advertise but also can expand the advertisers reach. smartclip has stated in their Whitepaper that casual gaming has a mass audience e when looking at the gaming industry, therefore, and a clear opportunity for advertising as 31% of Internet users are casual gamers. This is also the form of media with the highest likelihood of reaching the considerably hard-to-reach demographic of Gen Z, in which 8 out of 10 play video games[ii].
Image taken from smartclip’s Casual Gaming Whitepaper 2022
“Casual Gaming is the latest trend in the world of advertising, fuelled by the fact that our devices are essential and omnipresent our in daily lives. Our agencies and advertisers find this opportunity very interesting because it enables them to connect with a target audience that is usually harder to reach, such as Generation Z (age 11-25).”
Generation Z is not the only demographic that came as a surprise, as we are introduced to the ‘Gaming Mom’s’. The gaming mom’s, made up of 70% of mother’s who engage in video games. With 74% who play games on their phone daily.[i]
How do we utilise these platforms for advertising?
One of the ways in which we can advertise through casual gaming is rewarded ads. In games where lives/ gaming currencies are needed to continue with the games, the user can watch a quick 30-second ad to attain more currency. The player can only achieve the reward by watching the full ad, which means there is no option to skip. As defined by the IAB, rewarded video ads are an ad type that appears ‘around the game’ — during the gaming experience but not within the gameplay itself.
Retrospectively, around 21.19 and 22.77 minutes are spent on gaming apps each day[ii]. Making rewarded video ads is the most likely to draw the player’s attention. These multiple views, combined with the fact that players are more likely to view the full ad so they can receive their reward, leading to higher brand awareness and recognition.[iii]
Gaming is a perfect platform for advertising by offering high-quality, brand-safe environments alongside effective solutions for targeting, measurement, and reporting. Fitting hand in hand with smartclip, with their smartx ad server and supply-side platform technology combined with their widespread expertise, provides publishers with tools and solutions needed to serve relevant ads to various target groups – such as generation Z.
Some of our key learnings:
- New targeting solutions are evolving as the advertising industry reduces its reliance on identity-based tracking.
- Gaming is a fragmented market, but advertisers of all types and sizes can make use of a range of adtech and curation solutions — such as those offered by smartclip — that will enable them to take advantage of the opportunities available.
- Breaking down preconceived notions is essential to ensure everyone understands the potential of gaming advertising.
“Our partner Smartclip’s whitepaper on Casual Gaming discusses creative new adtech solutions that help advertisers display their content in new and exciting ways. Thanks to our strong partnership, these innovations help RTL AdAlliance remain at the forefront of advertising.”
This is just a small snippet of what can be discovered in smartclip’s Gaming Whitepaper, learn more about this opportunity by downloading the whitepaper.
Click the link down below to access smartclip’s study:
Sources
[1] smartx platform data, smartclip, sourced October 2022
[2] Brune, M. (2022, December 13). Gen Z gamers: How generation Z engage with video games. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/gen-z-gamers-key-insights
[3] Activision Blizzard Media. (2020, May). Mom’s Got Game. Retrieved February 01, 2023, from Activision Blizzard Media website: https://www.activisionblizzardmedia.com/gamermoms
[4] Chang, J. (2023, January 08). 92 app usage statistics: 2023 data on Downloads & Consumer Spending. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://financesonline.com/app-usage-statistics/
[5] Crowley. (2022, October 31). What are rewarded ads? the benefits of rewarded ads. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://appsamurai.com/blog/rewarded-ads-benefit-app-owners/