Casual Games, Serious Marketing

Now that the flood of pre-holiday advertising for console and computer-based games is finally receding, it may be time to remember that for many people, game playing is truly a casual affair. Rather than sitting down to a marathon, hours-long session of strategy or a massive, multiplayer game supported by a fridge full of energy drinks and snacks, they tend to grab a few free moments on the Web to try their skill at one of many simple games that they can start and stop as time demands.

Back in October, Blockdot, which produces casual games and advergames and hosts them on its Kewlbox.com Web site, came out with a survey of casual game players on its portal that seems to underline the effect branded advergames can have on the brands that sponsor them. In a poll of 1,000 Kewlbox.com players, 83% reported having positive associations with companies that sponsor free Web games, and 70% said they are more likely to buy from companies that sponsor those free games.

The advergaming component with the greatest impact is not the ads placed inside the games, the report notes, but the amount of engagement created with the game and thus with the sponsoring brand. In the Blockdot poll, 74% of respondents said that if they play a game title once, they will play it four or five times, and 67% said they pass along game links to their friends or challenge them to beat their high scores. That’s a pretty high engagement potential — even if Kewlbox users may be more disposed than the average person to respond well to games.

Another factor powering marketer interest in free branded online games is that their attraction goes far beyond the stereotyped young-adult male audience. In fact, teenage and young adult girls and older women are two of the fastest growing audiences for online games generally. Research from comScore Media Metrix last August found that the number of female gamers in the 12 to 17 demographic shot up 55%, to 4.7 million, from the level comScore found in August 2007.

The gaming population among women 55 to 64 increased almost as much, up 43% year over year, with 4.4 million now describing themselves as game players. Women 18 to 24 also saw a substantial 35% increase in players.

To appeal to these female game-players — and to offer ad opportunities to the brands that want to grab their attention — Hearst Magazines has augmented the gaming features on the Web sites of a number of its women-oriented magazine titles, including GoodHousekeeping.com and Redbook.com. Game pages on those sites now offer popularity rankings and reviews, leader boards showing top scores, and an “e-mail a friend” button to draw in other players.

The games themselves are casual titles that are familiar or can be learned quickly, but offer a chance to increase one’s skill with return visits: Mah-Jongg, Cryptogram, Sudoku, Klondike Solitaire, Word Search and so forth. As supplied by games maker Arkadium — which also designed the Hearst game pages — the games are customized for the look and feel of the Hearst sites and can also be customized by brand marketers.

“The average person playing games online is a woman age 33,” notes Nicole Stagg, director of content strategy for Hearst Magazines Digital Media. “We’ve found these games to be really popular with the magazine audiences: They’re spending 20 minutes and more just playing one game, as opposed to the teenagers, who spend only 12 to 14 minutes. The games for younger moms give them a chance to take a break from caring for someone else and just take some time for themselves. That’s why we see a traffic spike in the middle of the day.”

Gamers on the Hearst mom-book sites also get some community recognition in the form of on-site messages that applaud their recent play for all to see. “Congratulations, gjr5017, you just scored 5505 playing Sudoku,” one recent announcement read.

As an extra incentive to return, players also earn extra points simply for playing the games regularly, however they score. For now those points offer bragging rights only, but Stagg says the sites will soon roll out a system that will enter players into sweepstakes on the basis of these loyalty points.

Of course, there’s also a market for branded games that are more elaborate and involving than Word Search. In November Arkadium rolled out an online adventure game specifically developed to help the National Geographic Channel promote its Expedition Week programming. Players sent explorer avatars on hunts for artifacts that could then be redeemed to fund more online “digs.”

The promotion linked offline with broadcast “snipe” ads on NGC offering codes that could unlock bonus tools and experiences within the game.

“We saw an opportunity to tie our brand in not with just a casual game but with something that actually related to the show,” says Brad Dancer, NGC vice president of research and digital media. “The game let audiences interact with the on-air programming and go beyond it to complete their own adventures online.”

Speaking before the Nov. 15 launch of Expedition Week, Dancer said the game was already seeing average play sessions of 18 minutes and more, and predicted that average time would grow during the week of programs. The game is modular, so Dancer expects it will be adapted to continue on the Web site as long as interest remains high.

Branded games can add a social dimension when they show up as applications within social networks. Kidnap!, an app launched by The Travel Channel and agency RAPP Collins Worldwide within Facebook on a platform from Context Optional, lets registrants select a global city as a hideout and then “kidnap” their friends, giving the game a viral spread. By surfing to the Travel Channel Web site, players can retrieve clues about the cities in which they’re being held and acquire better kidnapping tools than those at the beginner level, such as giant fly paper or an eight ball in a sock.

Launched in July 2008, the Facebook game picked up more than 225,000 active monthly users in its first six weeks. By November that number had grown to more than 3 million users, and Kidnap! was ranked sixth in Facebook’s gaming category and first in travel. The game also serves as a loyalty-builder, occasioning about 60,000 clicks daily to TravelChannel.com and about 140,000 repeat players.

“The Travel Channel audience has a curiosity about local culture, so we put content into the middle of this gaming application to trigger that curiosity and need for discovery,” says Camillo LaCruz, executive creative director for Rapp. “You’re led to Travel Channel content in a way that’s not overtly branded at first, but brings you deeper into the Travel Channel properties.”

That low-key approach is important in using social media to spread a game. “The most important thing for Facebook users is not the brand, it’s their friends,” says Kevin Barenblat, co-founder and CEO of Context Optional, which has worked with 20 brands on apps for social networks. “People are there to connect with their friends. The Kidnap game has been successful because it gives people a new way to interact.”

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