In-game advertising has been used by brands for a long time. Historically it always required involvement from the game developer. They would take the advertising creative and place it into the game code and release a game update.
This evolved over time so adverts could be dynamically inserted into a game and displayed to the players. This process made life easier for advertisers and brands but it was still very costly.
We’ve now reached a point where brands and advertisers have alternatives. Rather than inserting adverts into the game for the players to see there are solutions for inserting adverts into a stream. When people watch the live stream on Twitch, YouTube, Mixer and other platforms it looks like the advert is part of the game.
With viewership continuing to grow brands are already working with streamers to have logos as overlays on the stream. This solution now gives those brands another way to present their creative or messaging. The great thing about in-game adverts is that that don’t break the viewing experience.
How it works
Locations in the game are pre-configured and when the game is broadcast by the streamer the advert creative is displayed. Viewership is tracked against the number of impressions of the advert.
Advert creative can be inserted onto most surfaces such as in-game billboards, signage and on the walls of buildings. This provides flexibility in both placement and type of advert for brands to explore.
In-game advertising will continue to grow but this solution presents an exciting opportunity to maximise ROI by focusing on the viewers rather than the players.
