A Presidential First
I’m not talking about the possibility of electing our nation’s first African American president or female vice president. I’m talking about political advertising in video games. As you may have read, The Obama campaign has recently acknowledged purchasing advertisements in select video games, including Madden 09, Guitar Hero, Burnout Paradise, NASCAR 09, NBA Live 09 and several others. The ads are targeted at 18-34 year old (males) in key states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin. The ads will be shown in the form of billboards and other in-game signage and will appear in Xbox 360 games that are played online.
What makes this tactic notable is that, politics aside (The McCain campaign was also approached with the same opportunity but declined), the Obama campaign has reached out to a group of voters in a rather unique way.
Video game advertising, in one form or another, has been around for many years. However, blending a static “McDonald’s” on a city wall wall or “Firestone Tires” into a scoreboard often goes consciously unnoticed, as it seems to ad “realism” to the environment, stadium or sporting venue.
The Obama billboards are a significant step in extending this advertising from generic content to topical, targeted messaging. Although Obama is not the first advertiser to utilize this medium, his campaign is the first to utilize it for a political purpose.
The advertising will only appear to online gamers located in specific geographic locations. The in-game advertising can then be rotated or sold to a new bidder, something that was not possible without the dynamic capabilities of online gaming. Because this technology and strategy is relatively new, I expect to see marketers continue to refine their messaging and platform in this new medium over the coming months and years as advertisers continue to look for new ways tho reach their audience.
Will this advertising have any effect? I’m not sure. However, as a marketer, and Madden fanatic, I’ll be watching closely.
