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THE BRIEF: Advertisers, get your brands on the game
Wednesday January 26th 2011By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler
Get your game on.
Right now, in real time, your brand directors and media planners should be considering ways to integrate your brand on social games. Because this is where the moms, dads, kids, tweens, teens and singles hang out. All 230 million of them are engaging actively with their gaming community at any given time. The stats from SocialTimes.com report that “95% of social gamers log on to play at least two to three times a week, and 64% log on one or more times per day.”
Where is Oz? It’s in CityVille from Zynga, the newest hotspot on Facebook. The object of this game is to build a great town, from the ground up, and its success has been meteoric. It took CityVille less than one month to surpass the game magnet, FarmVille, in terms of both daily and monthly active users, and it took under forty days for it to reach 100 million users. Take a quick tour of the game here and find out how it hooks you for virtual goods and currency.
FarmVille, by Zynga has approximately 80 million active users and 18-plus million users play it every single day. The game pulled in as much as 200% more net profit in 2009 than Facebook itself. ABC reports that the majority of Farmville players are 40-something women, but a vast diversity of generations play the game.
The virtual economy is not in a recession. In social gaming, the commerce is flourishing. Avatars have never had it better. The gaming world is overflowing with branded and non-branded virtual goods – just close your eyes and dream up anything you could possibly want but can’t afford in real life, and then pay for it with virtual currency… that costs real money. Real, real money.
As a matter of fact, in the real world, virtual currency adds up to nearly $2 billion this year, according to ThinkEquity, a financial research firm in San Francisco. *
Don’t you want some of that for your brand? Volvo does. Elizabeth Olson reports in nytimes.com that “Volvo Cars of North America, the clothing retailer H&M and MTV Networks are among the diverse brands entering the market for virtual goods.”
Gamers buy Facebook Credits in the following currencies. Hint. Hint. US Dollars (USD); Australian Dollars (AUD), British Pounds (GBP); Canadian Dollars (CAD); Chilean Peso (CLP); Colombian Peso (COP); Danish Krone (DKK); Euro (EUR); Hong Kong Dollar (HKD); Japanese Yen (JPY); Norwegian Krone (NOK); Swedish Krona (SEK); Swiss Franc (CHF); Turkish Lira (TRY), and Venezuelan Bolivar (VEF). Monopoly money is not accepted.
To make some sense of all the ephemera above, The Brief invites you to listen to The Globe and Mail’s Ivor Tossell on “Virtual Goods = Jackpot.” [Download (.mp3)]
Sources include:
*http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/your-mom-farmville/
*http:/www.nytimes.com/1010/09/07/businessmedia/07adco.htm
*Farmville: http://mashable.com/2010/09/10/farmville-vs-real-farms-infographic/ – disqus_thread
*Stock market game – Empire Avenue: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/11/05/social-stock-market-empire-avenue-introduces-real-world-rewards/
*http:/www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/gurbaksh-chahal-interview/
*Read how Zynga has removed scams from games: http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/02/zynga-takes-steps-to-remove-scams-from-games/
*http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/media/07adco.html?ref=mtvnetworksAdvertising Marketing Fanciful Items in the Lands of Make Believe By Elizabeth Olson, September 6, 2010
A real comment about virtual goods:
Jonathan Jennings 1 Sep 2010 at 12:58 am PST:
“I think there is a lot of money to be made in virtual goods. While I admit I was originally opposed to the idea I have seen avatar items take off on Xbox live. I have seen everything from the “save carmine” shirts for gears of war 3 to the RC car Item available to players straight from the Microsoft avatar area. I think what really made the items take off though is the amount of items there are for each game, the turning point for myself was seeing a t-shirt with the transformers logo on it, at the time I thought that was just too cool and since anyone logging into Xbox live can see your avatar on their friends list it’s very obvious someone would see it. While I very rarely care for things like that I admit it has its charm. That goes hand in hand with the personalization you speak of in my opinion. Players are given the ability to represent there favorite games on their avatar and considering Xbox live is a gaming service it’s obvious that such representation is appreciated or will be understood.”
—–
Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter
Front Page, Industry News
THE BRIEF: Advertisers, get your brands on the game
Wednesday January 26th 2011By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler
Get your game on.
Right now, in real time, your brand directors and media planners should be considering ways to integrate your brand on social games. Because this is where the moms, dads, kids, tweens, teens and singles hang out. All 230 million of them are engaging actively with their gaming community at any given time. The stats from SocialTimes.com report that “95% of social gamers log on to play at least two to three times a week, and 64% log on one or more times per day.”
Where is Oz? It’s in CityVille from Zynga, the newest hotspot on Facebook. The object of this game is to build a great town, from the ground up, and its success has been meteoric. It took CityVille less than one month to surpass the game magnet, FarmVille, in terms of both daily and monthly active users, and it took under forty days for it to reach 100 million users. Take a quick tour of the game here and find out how it hooks you for virtual goods and currency.
FarmVille, by Zynga has approximately 80 million active users and 18-plus million users play it every single day. The game pulled in as much as 200% more net profit in 2009 than Facebook itself. ABC reports that the majority of Farmville players are 40-something women, but a vast diversity of generations play the game.
The virtual economy is not in a recession. In social gaming, the commerce is flourishing. Avatars have never had it better. The gaming world is overflowing with branded and non-branded virtual goods – just close your eyes and dream up anything you could possibly want but can’t afford in real life, and then pay for it with virtual currency… that costs real money. Real, real money.
As a matter of fact, in the real world, virtual currency adds up to nearly $2 billion this year, according to ThinkEquity, a financial research firm in San Francisco. *
Don’t you want some of that for your brand? Volvo does. Elizabeth Olson reports in nytimes.com that “Volvo Cars of North America, the clothing retailer H&M and MTV Networks are among the diverse brands entering the market for virtual goods.”
Gamers buy Facebook Credits in the following currencies. Hint. Hint. US Dollars (USD); Australian Dollars (AUD), British Pounds (GBP); Canadian Dollars (CAD); Chilean Peso (CLP); Colombian Peso (COP); Danish Krone (DKK); Euro (EUR); Hong Kong Dollar (HKD); Japanese Yen (JPY); Norwegian Krone (NOK); Swedish Krona (SEK); Swiss Franc (CHF); Turkish Lira (TRY), and Venezuelan Bolivar (VEF). Monopoly money is not accepted.
To make some sense of all the ephemera above, The Brief invites you to listen to The Globe and Mail’s Ivor Tossell on “Virtual Goods = Jackpot.” [Download (.mp3)]
Sources include:
*http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/your-mom-farmville/
*http:/www.nytimes.com/1010/09/07/businessmedia/07adco.htm
*Farmville: http://mashable.com/2010/09/10/farmville-vs-real-farms-infographic/ – disqus_thread
*Stock market game – Empire Avenue: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/11/05/social-stock-market-empire-avenue-introduces-real-world-rewards/
*http:/www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/gurbaksh-chahal-interview/
*Read how Zynga has removed scams from games: http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/02/zynga-takes-steps-to-remove-scams-from-games/
*http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/media/07adco.html?ref=mtvnetworksAdvertising Marketing Fanciful Items in the Lands of Make Believe By Elizabeth Olson, September 6, 2010
A real comment about virtual goods:
Jonathan Jennings 1 Sep 2010 at 12:58 am PST:
“I think there is a lot of money to be made in virtual goods. While I admit I was originally opposed to the idea I have seen avatar items take off on Xbox live. I have seen everything from the “save carmine” shirts for gears of war 3 to the RC car Item available to players straight from the Microsoft avatar area. I think what really made the items take off though is the amount of items there are for each game, the turning point for myself was seeing a t-shirt with the transformers logo on it, at the time I thought that was just too cool and since anyone logging into Xbox live can see your avatar on their friends list it’s very obvious someone would see it. While I very rarely care for things like that I admit it has its charm. That goes hand in hand with the personalization you speak of in my opinion. Players are given the ability to represent there favorite games on their avatar and considering Xbox live is a gaming service it’s obvious that such representation is appreciated or will be understood.”
—–
Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter
Leave a Reply
Front Page, Industry News
THE BRIEF: Advertisers, get your brands on the game
Wednesday January 26th 2011By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler
Get your game on.
Right now, in real time, your brand directors and media planners should be considering ways to integrate your brand on social games. Because this is where the moms, dads, kids, tweens, teens and singles hang out. All 230 million of them are engaging actively with their gaming community at any given time. The stats from SocialTimes.com report that “95% of social gamers log on to play at least two to three times a week, and 64% log on one or more times per day.”
Where is Oz? It’s in CityVille from Zynga, the newest hotspot on Facebook. The object of this game is to build a great town, from the ground up, and its success has been meteoric. It took CityVille less than one month to surpass the game magnet, FarmVille, in terms of both daily and monthly active users, and it took under forty days for it to reach 100 million users. Take a quick tour of the game here and find out how it hooks you for virtual goods and currency.
FarmVille, by Zynga has approximately 80 million active users and 18-plus million users play it every single day. The game pulled in as much as 200% more net profit in 2009 than Facebook itself. ABC reports that the majority of Farmville players are 40-something women, but a vast diversity of generations play the game.
The virtual economy is not in a recession. In social gaming, the commerce is flourishing. Avatars have never had it better. The gaming world is overflowing with branded and non-branded virtual goods – just close your eyes and dream up anything you could possibly want but can’t afford in real life, and then pay for it with virtual currency… that costs real money. Real, real money.
As a matter of fact, in the real world, virtual currency adds up to nearly $2 billion this year, according to ThinkEquity, a financial research firm in San Francisco. *
Don’t you want some of that for your brand? Volvo does. Elizabeth Olson reports in nytimes.com that “Volvo Cars of North America, the clothing retailer H&M and MTV Networks are among the diverse brands entering the market for virtual goods.”
Gamers buy Facebook Credits in the following currencies. Hint. Hint. US Dollars (USD); Australian Dollars (AUD), British Pounds (GBP); Canadian Dollars (CAD); Chilean Peso (CLP); Colombian Peso (COP); Danish Krone (DKK); Euro (EUR); Hong Kong Dollar (HKD); Japanese Yen (JPY); Norwegian Krone (NOK); Swedish Krona (SEK); Swiss Franc (CHF); Turkish Lira (TRY), and Venezuelan Bolivar (VEF). Monopoly money is not accepted.
To make some sense of all the ephemera above, The Brief invites you to listen to The Globe and Mail’s Ivor Tossell on “Virtual Goods = Jackpot.” [Download (.mp3)]
Sources include:
*http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/your-mom-farmville/
*http:/www.nytimes.com/1010/09/07/businessmedia/07adco.htm
*Farmville: http://mashable.com/2010/09/10/farmville-vs-real-farms-infographic/ – disqus_thread
*Stock market game – Empire Avenue: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/11/05/social-stock-market-empire-avenue-introduces-real-world-rewards/
*http:/www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/gurbaksh-chahal-interview/
*Read how Zynga has removed scams from games: http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/02/zynga-takes-steps-to-remove-scams-from-games/
*http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/media/07adco.html?ref=mtvnetworksAdvertising Marketing Fanciful Items in the Lands of Make Believe By Elizabeth Olson, September 6, 2010
A real comment about virtual goods:
Jonathan Jennings 1 Sep 2010 at 12:58 am PST:
“I think there is a lot of money to be made in virtual goods. While I admit I was originally opposed to the idea I have seen avatar items take off on Xbox live. I have seen everything from the “save carmine” shirts for gears of war 3 to the RC car Item available to players straight from the Microsoft avatar area. I think what really made the items take off though is the amount of items there are for each game, the turning point for myself was seeing a t-shirt with the transformers logo on it, at the time I thought that was just too cool and since anyone logging into Xbox live can see your avatar on their friends list it’s very obvious someone would see it. While I very rarely care for things like that I admit it has its charm. That goes hand in hand with the personalization you speak of in my opinion. Players are given the ability to represent there favorite games on their avatar and considering Xbox live is a gaming service it’s obvious that such representation is appreciated or will be understood.”
—–
Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter
Leave a Reply
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