Optimism Abounds at 2024 IAB PlayFronts: Recap
Gaming ad revenue hits new heights despite industry turbulence
The 2024 IAB PlayFronts took place this week. The 2-day event echoed with effusive praise for the maturation of the gaming sector’s advertising offering.
Confidence in gaming’s effectiveness has never been higher than following the third edition of the IAB’s annual event dedicated to showcasing advancements in advertising from the industry’s most innovative partners.
According to Insider Intelligence, the U.S. total games ad revenue reached $7.53 billon in 2023 and is forecasted to grow steadily in the coming years.
Should data denoting increased investment year-over-year prove insufficient evidence of gaming’s effectiveness from an advertising perspective, perhaps case studies from big brands will prove useful in convincing.
Activations from E.L.F., Prada, and Ally Bank lend legitimacy to a space previously thought unfit for brand messaging — especially not from categories like beauty, luxury and finance.
The IAB’s recently released study — Changing The Game: How Games Advertising Powers Performance — shows just how important games advertising has become to all brands, regardless of category. 86% of respondents agree that games advertising is of growing importance to their company. Furthermore, 78% of advertisers are using games advertising throughout the year as opposed to one-off activations.
86% of respondents agree that games advertising is of growing importance to their company.
Unparalleled creative capabilities limited only by imagination is surely one reason for the increased attention towards gaming from brands, but enhanced measurement capabilities are likely another.
According to the IAB’s Changing The Game, 85% of advertisers are confident in measuring games advertising and 68%are now using the same metrics for games they use for other media channels.
Standardization in reporting is incredibly impactful for brands and agencies alike when assessing gaming’s effectiveness in relation to other channels.
Opportunities are seemingly endless when it comes to activating in gaming in 2024 –esports, influencers, custom editorial with publishers — but two channels have prevailed as most popular with brands advertisers in the last year — mobile and immersive digital environments.
Gaming Is Mobile First
At the recent PlayFronts, a significant emphasis was placed on mobile gaming, reflecting its growing prominence in the global gaming industry. This focus is well-justified considering that mobile players constitute 50% of the global gaming population, amounting to 1.71 billion players.
The trend is even more pronounced in the United States, where 77% of its 212 million gamers, equating to 164 million people, prefer playing games on mobile platforms. This demographic shift towards mobile gaming underscores the medium’s increasing appeal and its pivotal role in the gaming ecosystem.
Activision | Blizzard Media’s recent report, “ The Many Ways We Play: A New View Of Game Players,” sheds light on the frequency of mobile gaming, revealing that 86% of players engage with mobile games at least once per week. This insight, among others shared by Clement Xue and Jordan Shlachter during the PlayFronts, highlights the depth of Activision | Blizzard Media’s understanding of the mobile gaming landscape.
Given their experience with Candy Crush, the most popular mobile title to date, their insights into the habits and preferences of “mobile-centric” players are particularly valuable. These players, often newer to gaming or not traditionally identifying as gamers, represent a unique demographic largely untapped by brands.
A “mobile-centric” player tends to be an individual who didn’t grow up gaming or discovered it later in life and usually does not identify as a “gamer” when polled. This cohort will spend almost all of its gaming time on mobile devices, making it the one of the few places for your brand to break through to prospective consumers.
That prospective “mobile-centric” consumer is likely to be over 40 years of age and over-indexes female, so keep that in mind when tailoring your next ‘gaming’ creative.
Zynga’s presentation at the PlayFronts further emphasized this point, noting that 63% of its audience is over thirty-five, and highlighting its success in attracting Gen Y and Gen X players with its adult-oriented games. Zynga’s focus on creating immersive ad experiences within games like Words With Friends showcases the potential for brands to engage with audiences through integrated advertising that resonates with the players’ search for escapism and excitement.
As the number one mobile game publisher in U.S. reach — Zynga also affords brands an opportunity to connect with mobile gaming audiences at scale by advertising and activating across any and all of its 150 titles.
Niantic’s contribution to the discussion on mobile gaming innovation, particularly through augmented reality, introduced a new dimension to the conversation. With AR ads showing impressive engagement metrics, such as a 75% opt-in rate and 95% completion rate, Niantic demonstrated the effectiveness of interactive ads in enhancing brand awareness. The example of Circle K’s AR coffee cup campaign highlighted the potential for creative and engaging ad formats that seamlessly integrate into the gaming experience, offering brands a novel way to capture the attention of mobile gamers.
AdMazing — a game-agnostic ad platform effectively connecting brands to mobile game audiences — CEO Jorge Prado invited McDonald’s agency partners on stage for a conversation about how multicultural audience insights could influence the design of custom playable for different consumer segments. Hearing how AdMazing leveraged its deep knowledge of its userbase to influence engagement mechanics in game design was truly a tremendous takeaway.
Lastly, Digital Turbine — who acquired AdColony last year — deserves a shout for its mobile gaming reach. Its SDK is embedded in hundreds of the top mobile titles and offers many of the same immersive formats popular with other publishers.
Immersive Digital Environments
During a PlayFronts session, Twitch’s Head of Games, Bill Young, unveiled a remarkable growth in branded activations within Roblox, highlighting a jump from 20 in 2022 to 240 in 2023. This surge underscores the undeniable appeal of Roblox, alongside other enduring favorites like Fortnite and Minecraft, to brands looking to tap into vast, engaged audiences.
The sheer scale of these platforms has made them impossible for marketers to overlook, marking a significant shift in the landscape of digital engagement.
A prime example of this innovative storytelling was the collaboration between the NFL, Nickelodeon, and Gamefam for the Super Bowl event on Roblox. This partnership brought the excitement of the Super Bowl to the virtual world of Bikini Bottom, engaging Roblox users in a unique experience. The SpongeBob-themed Super Bowl event launched across several of Gamefam’s Roblox experiences and players who engaged were able to win cosmetics related to the event.
According to stats shared by Gamefam at the Playfronts, the NFL x Nickelodeon activation was the #1 game on Roblox, amassed 985 million minutes played and 75 million total visits.
Super League is another partner adept in helping brands navigate the immersive digital landscape to reach its monthly active user base of 145 million players. Super League shared its time on stage with a representative from Roblox who discussed a new tool for the platform’s ad manager. The soon-to-launch tool would allow brands to toggle between different targeting filters and see the estimated addressable audience across Roblox game’s matching the search parameters. Self-service tools like the one Roblox will be launching in the coming weeks will prove hugely beneficial in demystifying audience activity on the platform.
Fixated Studio brought one of the best Fortnite Creative examples to 2024’s Playfronts with TurboTax’s Millionaire Tycoon. Fixated helped Turbo Tax build a bespoke branded tycoon-type game and it quickly became the most successful brand game on Fortnite Creative to date — boasting nearly 10 thousand concurrent players at its peak point of popularity. Fixated Studios’ most innovative feature introduced to Turbo Tax’s island — a save progress button. Most brand experiences don’t allow users to save progress and including that simple element led to an uptick in repeat sessions.
SuperAwesome also talked about the importance of immersive digital environments — though through the lens of what it called “wearable media” — things like skins, styles and other custom cosmetics that enables “self-expression without limits”.
According to research shared at the Playfronts — the average Roblox changed their avatar’s appearance eight times a day. Further research from Roblox shows that over half of Gen Z (56%) say that styling their avatar is more important to them than their physical style.
It’s no wonder that 59% of United States kids and teens want digital goods with real life equivalents — they want to represent their online persona more accurately.
59% of United States kids and teens want digital goods with real life equivalents.
Should a brand require partner expertise in creating Gen Z- friendly assets for worlds like Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite — SuperAwesome knows a thing or two about connecting with younger generations delivering 621 billion youth impressions to date.
Lastly, Ubisoft’s discussion on immersive gaming experiences shed light on brand integrations into AAA titles, exemplified by the collaboration with Hamilton Watch for Far Cry 6. Hamilton Watch worked with the Far Cry 6 development team to design an in-game item that required players to complete a custom in-game mission to acquire the timepiece. Hamilton also produced real-life versions of the watch so that the most passionate fans could look just like the game’s protagonist
. Far Cry 6 is not the only title that Ubisoft offered integrations into though — Just Dance (Reebok + Lyle Lyle Crocodile) and Rainbow Six Siege (Axe) are two other premium titles with brands built in. These partnerships demonstrate the seamless blending of gaming and branding, where players can engage with branded content through in-game challenges and rewards. Such integrations not only enhance the gaming experience but also offer brands a unique avenue to connect with audiences, illustrating the vast potential of immersive environments for innovative brand storytelling.
In conclusion, if you’re like the 51% of advertisers who consider gaming part of another media channel (IAB), it’s time to reconsider.
Presenters at 2024’s PlayFronts spoke about creating “authentic” connections with audiences and “adding value” to the user experience and it’s difficult to do that without developing a comprehensive, always-on strategy for a sector unlike any other.
Gaming is set to usurp all other media as the primary form of entertainment in the very near future — so it’s imperative brands determine where existing audience resides and what tactics must be employed to sow the seeds of and subsequently secure a relationship with younger generations.
If 2024’s IAB PlayFronts proved anything to brands markerters it’s that if you’re only just now considering how to activate in the space, you’re almost
