Expand Your Market Virtually: How To Use Online Games To Advertise Your Products

If you are a fan of online games, then you may have noticed product placement running rampant in today’s line of online gaming amusements. The logo of a certain soft drink company can be seen on the signboard of a store standing in the background of a combat game. Online weapons carry the brand names of their offline counterparts. The sign of a fast food company turns up in a hero’s race through an imaginary city. The signs of marketing are everywhere, and they have infiltrated the once sacred grounds of online gaming!

To an outsider merely looking at the graphics and pixels of an online game, product placement can be annoying. The logos and signboards, however, reinforce images that add popularity to a product or service. As in the real world, product placement does make a difference, and online games can be no different.

The online gaming market is composed primarily of young adults and teenagers, most of them boys, who have little money to burn, but parents to get money from. This large spending block has always been the target of both online and offline companies, as the youth market is not only large, but influential. Some teens have turned their parents into fans of music, movies, and even books; if not for the youth market, Harry Potter might not have gotten off the ground and delighted young and old alike!

The youth market, however, is also the most sensitive product sector: it can sense when heavy marketing is afoot, and it can turn away and never look back if marketing becomes too annoying. Marketing therefore treads dangerous ground when dealing with the large, sometimes finicky youth market: marketing methods need to be convincing without falling into the hard selling trap; they need to be attractive without appearing gaudy or cheesy; they need to be ubiquitous without removing the sense of class and exclusivity that many members of the youth market are after.

To successfully engage in marketing through online games, you need to look at two different levels through which you can do product placement. You can either have someone create an online game exclusively for you, or you can inquire at already existing online gaming providers on how you can engage in product placement.

Having your own online game gives you the power to dictate how you want your product or service to be marketed through the game. You can place your logo or advertisement in certain places, or have gaming characters saying something about your product or service. You can even make your product or service the prize of winning the online game!

One disadvantage of having your own online game, however, is that you can easily stray into the hard-selling trap and turn customers away. It can also take time to design the game, and to make it exciting. You need a team of game planners to create a game that will sell, and that will attract more players; you also need a team of game designers and creators to make the game itself. If your game finally goes online, you need a monitoring team to moderate gaming activity and to make sure that your site is always secure. This can take up a lot of time and money on your part, so you might want to consult with existing gaming websites instead.

Contacting the gaming website’s marketing and external affairs arm can be easy, but convincing them to give you a say in product placement is a little more difficult. When scouting for gaming websites, look for games that are not only popular and exciting, but those that have been around for a while. More established games tend to have wider audiences and an established client base.

Ask for a market study of the people playing the online game, and see if your desired market falls into the category. If your first choice of online game does not have the market that you want, then keep on looking for an online game that has the built in market that will save you the effort of convincing people to purchase your products and services. When you finally find the online game that fits your market needs, keep in constant touch with your contacts in the marketing and external affairs department so that your product placement is successful.

Make sure that your name is not oversold or over-mentioned. Also ask that your product or service be mentioned in context: you do not want your fast food restaurant to turn up in a bombing zone, or your gun company to be mentioned in a virtual playground. Lastly, ask to have a look at the graphics that will represent your product placement: you will want clear graphics that accurately represent your product or service as they appear offline.

When you finally have the product placement in place, advertise the game on your site. Maintain a good working relationship with the gaming site, and your product placement will be successful. With good product placement, you can see your sales grow, and your market widen.