3 more challenges for gaming, according to programmatic
We were eager to know more, so once again we spoke to the experts about gaming’s role in the digital media mix.
After a first piece with programmatic advertising experts, we did another round of interviews about the state of the industry in Latin America and their view on in-game advertising.
This time, we spoke with Diego López, Digital Performance Director for Nissan United EMEA at Omnicom Media Group; Aldana Mandel, Precision Specialist in Argentina; Valentín Martínez, Programmatic Manager at Cadreon México; Aldo Tabe, Head of Precision México, and Jonatan Tellez, Head of Precision Argentina.
They agreed with our previous conclusions, and also added a few new angles to consider.
Curating a premium inventory
Advertising in video games has many advantages, but not all apps are the same.
“Nowasdays gaming should be seen as a mass, user safe medium. But we should access a curated inventory and only work with first class developers”, say Tellez and Mandel.
Tailoring creativity to the medium
It’s no news that, in digital advertising, it’s important to create special pieces for each platform. Campaigns that simply shorten a TV commercial without thinking of the specificity of each format don’t get the same results as the ones that do.
Martínez points out the industry’s creative potential. “Gaming is another territory to explore in order to find users. Innovation will lie in how we play with this element so that brands can get close to consumers”, he says.
Mandel and Tellez, on the other hand, stress: “Adapting creative pieces to the gaming ecosystem is fundamental, so we can make the best of a relaxed, concentrated player, and complement their gaming experience instead of interrupting it”.
Customizing at scale
As we have mentioned before, games as a medium allow us to gather information about users, their behavior and their preferences. This data can be combined with other technologies in order to open new horizons for brand communication.
According to Tabe, mobile games have provided campaign insights that other channels don’t bring. He explains: “Mobile is the main channel for understanding our audiences, and we can make use of this knowledge in a programmatic environment”.
López adds: “With good creative hypothesis work and DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization), this understanding of audiences leads to a huge opportunity to move from a mass communication model to a mass customization model, to precision marketing and, with the arrival of AI, prediction marketing”.
Bonus: Programmatic in Latin America
Martínez, Tellez and Mandel agree that, though these markets are not as “mature” as others, the region shows a good level of experience, creativity and technological development, and continues to grow.
“It pleases me to hear that more and more Latin American tech startups compete as equals with the big dogs of the advertising market –says Martínez–. This drive leads to interesting projects, equal or better than those of other regions”.
López, on the other hand, maintains that in spite of the high technical quality when in rolling out campaigns, Latin America “is still an immature region when it comes to putting strategies toghether, finding roles for different channels in a media mix, setting a framework of KPIs and understanding beyond numbers”. He thinks most of direct buying should migrate to a data-driven, programmatic model.
