Igem highlights trends and potential of advertising in the gaming sector

In his opening speech, Igem board member Roger Baur from Ringier Advertising emphasized the growing importance of gaming as an advertising platform. This was followed by five presentations on key findings and concrete implementations.

Andreas Weiss from Mediaschneider presented gaming usage in Switzerland based on the Igem Digimonitor study. 53 percent of the population aged 15 to 75 play games occasionally, 20 percent of them even on a daily basis. This applies equally to women and men. The target group is therefore correspondingly large, but also diverse in its gaming preferences.

Luca Hartmann from MYI presented how brands can inspire gamers. Using several short customer cases, he showed that there is no blueprint for successful brand campaigns in the gaming target group. They are also difficult to reach via traditional online advertising due to installed ad blockers. In Switzerland, 65% of male gamers under the age of 30 use an ad blocker to suppress online advertising (compared to 37% of the overall population, according to the Digimonitor study). Accordingly, he gave the audience key questions to help them develop the right campaign for their brand and goals.

Tim Buzzi from Goldbach presented gaming ads as a network product. The global industry is worth 214 billion US dollars - and gaming is no longer a niche hobby in Switzerland either. Nevertheless, the sector is barely represented in the media mix in this country, despite a large target group and growth potential. Buzzi shed light on gaming advertising and highlighted examples and potential, but also the challenges in this area.

Sam Lutz from Drop8 showed how advertising in the gaming environment represents an opportunity for advertisers. The amount of time people spend gaming is higher than that spent on music/podcasts or online news and is almost on par with social media and TV. Despite this high usage time, advertising spend in gaming is almost nine times lower - a huge untapped opportunity for advertisers. It also enables a unique increase in reach: in-game advertising is not a mere extension of digital channels, but offers a unique opportunity for an incremental increase in reach. Some of the target group in Switzerland can no longer be reached via traditional media such as TV, news websites or social media - gaming can close this gap.

Arend Hendriks from League-M / NetGrowth showed how advertising can be placed not only within the gaming world, but also in the wider environment. Using practical examples from Swiss brands, he made it clear that in-game advertising often has strong similarities with outdoor advertising and that there are exciting opportunities to reach the brand-affine target group of gamers in their extended community.

"The event shows the increasing relevance of advertising in gaming environments. Uniform standards and further research are crucial in order to exploit the full potential," summarizes Roger Bauer. "Igem will continue to make its contribution by giving gaming a prominent place in the Digimonitor study."