People love video games. Even those who shy away from considering themselves “gamers” enjoy a bit of gaming every now and then – all you need to do is go sit on public transportation for a couple of hours to see the masses of people playing Tetris on their cell phones. Even those who haven’t made the transition to the fancier smartphones likely know how to play the snake game on their cell phones and probably use it to wile away the empty minutes every now and then.
A savvy marketer sees this and starts dreaming of the possibilities. Bored consumers in locations where they have nothing else to do but tinker with the video games programmed into their cell phones are a prime market to start dropping advertising hints to. The numbers also back up the simple observations – over one third of cell phone users play video games on their cell phones at least occasionally. With this in mind, it’s easy to realize that this is a gigantic portion of the population. In marketing terms, this is a gigantic portion of the population that could be looking at your advertisements.
This is where the Advergame comes in. The name might be a little strange, but there’s nothing weird about how an advergame can help you get your marketing message across to an audience who often has nothing better to do than sit around and play your game. An advergame is exactly what it sounds like – a video game that’s been developed with your products in mind. Advergames come in all levels of complexity – one advergame might just be simple Tetris with an advertising banner across the top of the screen, while another company with a larger budget might develop an RPG type game that cleverly involves their products and services while offering the player a competitive gaming environment.
Advergames are a great avenue to explore if you’re at all interested in using the very best of technology to get the message across to your consumers. You also don’t need to be very tech savvy in your own regard to get the ball started on advergame development – a simple search online will produce hundreds of companies who are willing to help you design your very own advergame. All you need to do is come up with the idea for it, and let the programmers take care of the rest. Even if you’re looking for a more complex advergame, there is likely a storyboard artist who works at advergame companies who would be more than happy to help you create an advergame of your very own.
Remember, the more compelling your game, the more contact you’ll have with the customer since they’ll be inclined to play it longer. Come up with a compelling advergame and you could have potential customers interacting with your advertisements for hours!
