Advergaming consists of two different words which are “Advertisement” and “Game”. Simply, when promoters created games that makes advertisements of the selected company, the term “Advergame” is used to refer them. It is rather a new concept of advertising; it is first mentioned (or made up) by Anthony Giallourakis in 2000 and it actually boomed around (become popular) around 2004. Internet become an everyday use and that made advergaming more reachable for everyone.
Advergames can easily distributed online. Even company itself does not make an extra effort for distribution because if the game is fun to play than people start to suggest their friends themselves. We can name this suggestions as viral marketing. Suggestions make the distribution cheaper for the company and also distribution becomes more efficient. It is something important that in one case one of your best friends, someone you trust, tells you “try this game!” , on the other hand someone you do not know at all wants you to click on some website you do not ever heard of. Which one you will prefer? Which one makes better advertisement of the website? Of course viral marketing, in which internet users are inspired to recommend his friends and relatives to visit the website via sending them an e-mail or mentioning about the website around them.
Today there are a lot of advergames on the internet, it is used almost in every sector . Food, textile, electronics can be given as examples to those sectors. The term “advergame” gained the meaning of “free online game”, because major companies made the advantage of advergames by letting their customers to play them mostly for free. Some of the companies asked users to fill some kind of application form in order to collect information and create a customer data. Collected datas help companies to improve their products according to their customer profiles. Sometimes companies even offer a prize for the winner of their advergame. They use a registration form for being able to list the highest scores and of course with some extra questions they collect data about their customers.
Advergaming’s concept is not only free online games. Companies put some hidden advertisements into popular games or into popular movies. For instance, when you play Need for Speed you pass in front of some billboard advertising Coca Cola, or when you watch a movie handsome texts to beautiful and forces audience to notice his brand new cell phone. This kind of advergaming gives the sense of reality and makes players believe the scenario more.
Good Advergames entertain people for free that is why it is prefered by companies. People who experience advergames, feel like companies want them to participate with the brand which creates more loyal customer to their products. Customers become more familiar with the logo or slogan of the product while they spend time when playing the advergame. Also people click on the website to play the enjoyable free game, there company use the chance of calling the attention of the customer on new product.
Advergames usually designed for adults rather than children. According to magiclickgames.com, average player age is 29 in United States of America. It is also said in the website that between ages 25 and 35 women players are more active than males.
It seems like advergaming strategy will continue as long as people enjoy playing games and advergames give the correct infomation to players.
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