gaming

Anthropic’s AI-operated vending machine sparks chaos; ad revenue should remain a top priority; and Roblox has potential for in-game ads – and concerns.

With the growing number of social media users paying for a premium and often ad-free service, how can marketers engage these audiences?

HUMAN plans to build a deterministic ID from its tracking of more than 20 trillion digital signals per week across 3 billion devices, which will aid attribution for ecommerce.

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

In today’s newsletter: P&G boosts paid media budgets by 14%; why lower subscription prices aren’t enough to sustain the current rate of ad-supported streaming signups; and news publishers follow the NYT’s lead by using games to retain visitors.

The vast majority of advertisers who buy ads in video games (91%) no longer consider gaming to be an experimental media channel. But ad spend in games still lags behind audience engagement.

State Farm has spent tens of billions of dollars on TV advertising and brand marketing. But programmatic media buying also has a big role to play in helping nurture leads, says Alyson Griffin, State Farm’s head of marketing.

The mobile web version of Wordle now features interstitial video and display ads that will run after a user clicks “Play” and before the game loads on their screen. The move is part of a broader initiative to expand ad offerings across the company’s portfolio.

The company’s immediate plans for reinvesting its new capital include hiring more executive leadership to spearhead sales and partnerships, growing its engineering team and expanding its presence in the US and Japan.

Data privacy. Clean rooms. Measurement. Gaming. M&A. Which trends deserved the hype – and which ones didn’t – in 2022? We dig into some of the biggest topics of the year

While brands want to be active in video games, on influencer-driven streaming video platforms like Twitch and in metaverse-like online games like Roblox, it can be hard for marketers to measure ROI in these spaces. However, for Invisalign, like with other early-adopter brands, the opportunity in new gaming and metaverse channels has more to do with driving awareness than increasing incremental sales.

The IAB, in collaboration with the IAB Tech Lab and the Media Rating Council (MRC), released its first update to in-game ad measurement standards since 2009. The new standards reexamine the metrics for counting a valid in-game ad impression and add criteria for measuring ad placements in 3D and virtual environments. They also define in-game measurement terms in alignment with cross-channel measurement efforts.

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Like a good marketer, insurance brand State Farm is looking to reach people where they are – and, increasingly, that’s in games. Gaming is an effective way to get in front of younger audiences, of course. But it’s also about tapping into the enthusiasm that players have for games and gaming-related experiences, said Patty Morris, […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. After this exclusive first look for subscribers, the story by AdExchanger’s Allison Schiff will be published in full on AdExchanger.com tomorrow. Driving downloads is important. But Ben Webley, CMO of game developer Scopely, is looking for users who want to stick around. “We’re […]

Twitch has become a go-to spot for CPG product launches, as brands embrace the platform as a way to reach young people and run attribution case studies for online gaming. In one fresh example, a new custom pack of Sour Patch Kids had its debut this week in partnership with the Twitch streamer TimTheTatman. The […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Gijsbert Pols, Lead Product Strategist at Adjust. Connected TV (CTV) is largely associated with streaming services. It is not hard to see why. When people buy an Apple TV or a Roku box, a Samsung […]

Twitch is mainly known as a streaming platform for gamers. But what’s a gamer, actually? “The truth is, close to 80% of Americans over the age of 13 self-identify as gamers, and so the term starts to lose some of its meaning,” said Twitch CMO Doug Scott. “People who are into games aren’t solely into […]

When Cadillac put together a marketing strategy for its 2021 Escalade last year, gaming bubbled up as a place where the brand needed to play. “All of our research into current and future Escalade owners shows gaming as popping up pretty high from an index perspective,” said Marcie Pérez, associate director of media and performance […]

Unity Technologies raised more than $1.3 billion during its IPO in September at a $13.6 billion valuation, proof positive that the gaming industry isn’t playing around. Roughly 750,000 creators, mainly game developers, use the Unity platform to build their apps, and Unity’s game engine powers game titles played on billions of devices around the world, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Facebook’s Game Plan Facebook’s new video game streaming service, launched this week, is part of a big push to sell more ads. Facebook selling more ads? Who woulda thunk it. The service, which allows games to be played from the cloud and streamed directly to a […]

Gameplay has been way up during the pandemic, with no sign of slowing down. But people aren’t just playing more games – they’re reading about them. Since January, Wired has seen a more than 84% year-over-year increase in traffic to its gaming coverage. The average number of visits to gaming-related content is 11% higher than the […]

Gaming might have an audience of all ages, but if a brand is just going to slap an ad into a game, then it might as well not bother. “If you just want to run a simple media activation, frankly, you don’t need gaming for that – media can run anywhere,” said Alexandre Tan, VP of […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Viva La Pérsonalization The French government will loosen archaic laws this month that have undercut French broadcasters for years. The biggest change will be to repeal a 1993 law that says all French households must receive the same broadcast stream. So French TV stations […]

The increase in time spent with games during the pandemic wasn’t an aberration. People are still gaming, even with the onset of nicer weather and the fitful reopening of the economy. French game studio Gameloft saw a significant uptick in new players throughout March and April, which continued steadily into May with the arrival of […]

Not a news flash: Media agencies are under immense pressure. That was true long before the pandemic. But agencies have also made big investments in data and technology over the last few years that are starting to bear fruit. This week on The Big Story, special guest Jay Pattisall, a principal analyst at Forrester, calls […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Rob Gabel, founder and CEO at Tubular Labs. Stuck inside for more than two months now, many of us have looked toward new interests to help occupy the time away from work and/or parenting […]

A couple of years ago, Amazon Kindle asked Nativex, one of its app monetization partners, to strike hypercasual game publishers from its media plan. But Nativex demonstrated that the hypercasual audience is primarily female and 25+ with a predilection for e-reading – and that Kindle campaigns have really good conversions when targeting that audience. “We’re […]

Tencent had a monster start to the year, with overall ad revenue bolstered by its gaming division (natch). But it’s being super cautious about its outlook for the second quarter compared with others in the gaming space as people return to work and have less time to game their hearts out. While Activision Blizzard and […]

On Monday, Activision Blizzard Media, the advertising and media arm within Activision Blizzard (parent company to juggernaut game studio King), launched King’s Council, a panel comprised of around 5,000 of its most engaged and active players across the United States and the United Kingdom. The purpose is to conduct user research and to test ad […]