Free Advergames Play Well with Gamers: Survey
Advertising in online games can make game players think favorably about the brands behind the messages and even buy their goods and services more than the average consumer, according to a new survey of advergamer behavior.
The survey polled 1,000 users of www.Kewlbox.com, a gaming portal owned and managed by Blockdot, a Web game development company that has produced free online advergames for clients such as M&Ms, Nokia, Kraft and Universal Pictures. Many of these games have been hosted on the Kewlbox.com site.
According to Blockdot, 83% of respondents to the survey said they have a positive impression of the companies that sponsor the free games, while 70% said they are more likely to buy products from those companies.
The survey also found that 74% of the response group say they will play an advergame title four or more times, and 67% will pass along a game link to friends or challenge their social group to beat their high score at a game.
The report illustrates that advergames work through repeated exposure and engagement, not simply by displaying an ad once, Blockdot said.
“Advertisers benefit by the immersive and positive brand experience created by effective game play—not necessarily by seeing an ad in a game,” the company stated. “Engaging a user in an activity creates an event where a brand interacts and communicates with its audience for extended periods of time.”
The survey also highlighted some similarities and differences in the way male and female gamers approach a game aggregator site such as kewlbox.com. For example, women are more likely to play a game more than five times (59%) than men (48%). Men are more likely to spread a game virally (67%) to their friends online than women are (58%).
And while more than 90% of both men and women think online games can help children learn, women are more likely than men to actually play online games with their children, 67% to 56%.
The Kewlbox.com site reportedly averages more than 1 million unique visitors a month and sees more than 1 million game plays per day. The site serves as a launch platform for many of the casual games Blockdot develops, including a Lego “Crosstown Craze” racing game and “Ribonucleic Rave” for pharma company Roche.
