We were interviewed for Funky Business
“Video games have a huge advertising potential due to the player’s mindset and the amount of time users spend playing with them”, stated our CEO.
Last September 21, Etermax, the video game developer famous for Trivia Crack and Aworded Crack, announced to the media the launch of Flame Ads, the first marketing company dedicated to in-game advertising in Latin America. Following the announcement, our CEO Guido Farji was invited to the show Funky Business, which aired in the Trend Topic radio station. During the interview with hosts Leandro Africano and Carina Martínez, Guido Farji told us about the birth of Flame Ads, analyzed the current state of the mobile gaming industry and described the traits that make the new agency unique.
A company born following a market need
Flame Ads came to life at a key point of Etermax’s story, a company already consolidated, with a strong position in the industry and past the start-up phase. One of the decisions that drove the company’s success was the implementation of a business model based in ad monetization instead of in-app purchases, another strategy which is quite common in the industry. This way, the studio gained experience in the advertising sector, which resulted in the creation of Flame Ads.
“By offering our services as publishers, we learnt we can reach a wide, diverse audience through ads in Trivia Crack, our hit game. But we also understood that not all kinds of audiences play Trivia Crack and neither can we use all kinds of engagement methodologies in this app. As we have a close relationship with brands, they usually ask where it’s best to advertise to fulfil their campaign goals. This created a connection between game development companies and advertisers, which eventually fueled the creation of this business unit,” said Guido Farji in the interview. He also revealed that one of Etermax’s corporate values is to invest in Latin America, and that interest was key for creating Flame Ads, which aims to bolster up games developed by Etermax and other game studios in the region.
Audience and the gaming industry
Games are the biggest entertainment industry in the world, with revenues as high as USD 140 billion a year (51% of which come from mobile games). It’s such a big industry that, in 2016, mobile games generated more revenue than movie ticket sales. In Latin America, the mobile gaming industry handles USD 5 billion a year and has around 250 million players. In Argentina, one of the biggest markets in the region, 65% of online population plays mobile games and there’s 17 million people playing from their mobile devices.
Nowadays, mobile games have a huge potential to be used as advertising channels. This is so because users feel focused, entertained and cheerful while they’re playing, and this makes a perfect context for them to receive ads. “That mindset combined with the amount of time users spend playing with mobile games (which is only less than social media and listening to music) give room for the amazing performance of ads shown in this channel,” said Guido Farji. Also, a deep bond between the audience and brands is forged.
One-stop shop
Flame Ads is a comprehensive marketing solution that accompanies brand and agencies during the whole advertising cycle in order to support them. “We stand with agencies and brands during in each step of the process. The mobile gaming industry is quite complex because, unlike other digital media, it’s very atomized. There’s thousands of videogames and the audiences that play them change all the time. For advertisers, it’s very difficult to pinpoint the interests of millennials or generation Z, or to identify the game that’s in this season… so that’s where we step in,” described Guido Farji.
The agency is involved in each campaign from day one and collaborates with the creative process. As soon as advertisers have a brief, the agency jumps in with ideas. Then the Flame Ads team provides guidance as regards the best game mechanics for the campaign and the game that offers the best medium. Later on, the agency assists during operations, which includes creativities design as well as campaign implementation and performance tracking. This way, the team is able to control that targets are met, while the client is free of another administrative process.
