Ad Watch Year in Review

When looking over the past year in Ad Watch, one theme quickly came to the fore: in-game ads have reached critical mass. It became more and more apparent as the year wore on that in-game ads were the new black. IGA, Massive and Double Fusion seemed to be signing major deals on a weekly basis and GameDaily BIZ was there to cover it.

In February, we talked with IGA about their plans for worldwide expansion. Double Fusion signed a major agreement with both Midway and THQ in March. April featured the Yankee Group giving a report on how in-game ads will increase in size five times by 2010. The next week, we talked to Interpret about in-game ads metrics. We discussed "ad wraps" (a variation on in-game ads) with TryMedia in June. Massive had our ear in late July, discussing interactive billboards in Anarchy Online. The next two weeks, we covered an IGA/Codemasters team up and Vykarian's 3D in-game ads for Double Fusion. In August, we talked with Exent about their new in-game ads technology. The next month, we published an article on the present and future of in-game ads. Finally, we discussed Nielsen's entry into gaming metrics (including those of in-game ads) and talked about qualitative assessments of in-game ads with Bunnyfoot.

The above doesn't even go into the dozens of other news stories and main features also focusing on the subject in the past year. Sometimes, it felt like all we were talking about was in-game ad companies and it was THE trend in gaming advertising in the past year. While gamers may have a great deal of ambivalence (or in some cases, disdain) about the subject, in-game ads are surely here to stay.

While nothing blew up quite like the "Hot Coffee" scandal in 2005, there were a number of smaller controversies that flared up. More than 10 months ago, a web game for New Line's Running Scared attracted NIMF's attention. The web game apparently featured a section where you give a woman "oral pleasure" and this did not sit well with the watchdog group. The content was eventually taken down and the matter was forgotten (in fact, we're willing to bet this is the most Running Scared has been mentioned in 6 months).

Receiving much more press from the enthusiast media were a series of ads for Eidos' Hitman: Blood Money, and one in particular featured a scantily clad woman left dead with a bullet in her brain. Explaining the reasoning for the ad that mixes sex and violence against women, the Global Brand Manager for Eidos, Kathryn Clements, explained this past May, "That really wasn't the intention at all, and being a woman it is something I would feel very strongly against portraying (as would all men at Eidos or that I choose to work with!) It is representative of a female character who wanders about the level drunk in a bikini. She actually tries to seduce Hitman and invites him to her bedroom. We took artistic license on the bikini and switched it to underwear as we thought it may confuse people; i.e. why that woman is on a bed in a bikini. We took those photos in the middle of December in a freezing warehouse - that poor model was so cold."

One company in particular drew the ire of quite a few gamers and non-gamers alike for their ads and that leads into our next section...

No company in gaming last year managed to create as much of a stir with their ads as Sony. It started at the conclusion of 2005, where a series of ads resembling graffiti sparked much controversy. That was followed up with a PSP TV campaign focusing on similarly styled images, popular to some and annoying to others.

While Sony's E3 unveiling of the PS3 was not without its own issues, their ad campaign for the L.A. event turned heads. Called "Play Beyond," it showed images of simple play taken to the fantastical extreme. This bright spot for SCE's advertising was clouded over when a PSP ad in Holland gained global notoriety for its racist implications. Showing the contrast between a black and white woman for the new ceramic white PSP the, uh, crap storm that followed prompted Sony to pull the ads.

Some people may look at these events on the surface and say that it was a pretty bad year for SCE marketing. We believe, however, that most of these ads did their job and more: they got people talking... about Sony ads. Think about that for a minute and then try arguing that Sony isn't crazy like a fox.

At the end of the year, we got a chance to talk to Peter Dille, SCEA's Head of Marketing, about the company's subsequent holiday ad campaign, which transitions appropriately into...

It took a lot of behind-the-scenes politicking and quite a bit of pushing, but GameDaily BIZ managed to conjure up Ad Watch articles about the holiday ad campaigns from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The results were totally worth it, however, and we were pleased with the results.

Our talk with SCEA focused on all aspects of the ad campaign for the then unreleased PS3. Our subsequent discussion with Microsoft attracted more attention than we bet on, when other sites latched onto the news of a Gears of War trilogy. Finally, our chat with Nintendo detailed all the unique qualities of marketing the Wii, from hands-on time with geriatrics to broken wrist straps.

We're hoping that the marketing landscape in 2007 will be just as entertaining to cover as 2006's memorable advertising trends and campaigns.