In-Game Advertising Spend to Reach $1bn

Spending on in-game advertising will reach $1bn by 2014.
Media & Marketing 26th May 2009.

In its latest report, In-Game Advertising: Market Assessment and Forecasts to 2014, media analyst Screen Digest predicts that in the future it will become impossible for brands to ignore the audience share that video games attracts.

For the report Screen Digest explored the in-games advertising industry and surveyed digital planners from GroupM’s global agency network. It was revealed that the combination of audience media habits and the unique advertising opportunities it provides will turn in-game advertising into a major growth medium. Screen Digest estimates that dynamic in-game ads will account for around 1.5% of annual spending in 2014.

According to the report, areas of in-game advertising that made it attractive to brand owners and digital planners included: scalability, accountability, high levels of audience engagement and positive brand associations.

“Games are proven recession-beaters with an ad-funded online model that actually works,” said Adam Smith, futures director at GroupM. “There are many ways in which advertising can help evolve business models for video games and we have only just begun to explore that potential. Given gaming is now a mainstream leisure interest, in-game deserves the same consideration as mobile and social media.”