Is Advergaming The Best Way To Advertise To Chinese Youth?

Step onto any form of public transport in China, look in any direction, someone will be playing on their mobile phone/portable device. In this year alone the mobile gaming industry had already grown to around RMB520 million by Q2, an increase of 39.5% on Q1. Although much of this income for mobile operators such as China Unicom comes from the direct purchase of the games, further revenue can be generated in this new market thanks to the progress of ‘advergaming‘.
Advergaming can be roughly broken down into three catergories:

• mini games on brand websites to draw interest;
• direct branding of games;
• product placement within games.

What we see in mobile advergaming is the forming of a unique segment. Mobile advergaming maintains the usual brand interaction of advergaming but puts less constraints on locale and taps into a burgeoning market of mobile gaming.

A great example of mobile advergaming in effect can be seen through Puma’s F-wan campaign. Due to Puma’s brand relationship with Ferrari and the then upcoming Shanghai F1 race, the chosen format wasa simple 2D racing game with the option for race times to be SMS’d to a leaderboard. The game was promoted at popular online portals and in order to drive more customers to Puma stores, coupons for phone accessories were offerved via MMS for all who downloaded the game.

Phonevalley were honored by the Mobile Marketing Association for the success and innovation of the campaign.

While the F-wan game was simplistic in nature the SMS and MMS connection between brand and customer was a good way to entice customers to surrounding Puma stores – the ultimate goal of any campaign. What’s important to note in the success of the Puma campaign, is the direct link to purchasing and/or increased store traffic. In doing this, advergaming can retain some sembalance of measurability.

While this campaign itself is slightly dated it has gamed all the more relevance with the rising interest in the iphone and in particular the iphone applications. With ever increasing innovation in the mobile technology and with deeping connections between web and mobile company, brands must be alert to the possibilities of new fields such as mobile advergaming.

The popularity of gaming amongst the Chinese youth, aswell as the amount time spent, mean the possibilities for advergaming in China are extremely enticing. Advergaming holds great possibilities but as technology evolves so must the form of advertising. Chinese gamers will easily see through transparent advergaming campaigns.

I feel a successful campaign, which offers brand interaction and reward, as well as a social element could be the best means to target a wide section of Chinese youth. For this to happen we could see the advent of mobile MMO advergaming but until then expect advergaming to stay short term, simple and fun.