You are 2.3 seconds behind Roterro214 on the final lap and just about to pass him and… BAM, he swipes your Porsche and it goes into a spiral roll across the track. Your dream of winning the Coca-Cola fridge is dashed yet again. You might think behind the wheel of a Porsche in Grand Turismo or another XBox Live, high-adrenaline racing game. Instead, you’re playing a banner advertisement for EA Sports new game, Need for Speed: Shift. EA’s banner game offers glimpse into the future of marketing.
We are in a transformative time in advertising. We are transitioning away from pushing a message to advertising 2.0, where users select relevant, entertaining content. “If people instead pull bits of information into their lives through a game, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership,” writes the NY Times. Games are just one way to create consumer / brand ownership.
Much like EA Sports banner advertisements, marketers are pioneering new ways to engage users in fun, informative and highly relevant ways — whether it’s through high-quality, banner ad games or iAd’s Toy Story 3 microsite or Groupon’s group discount voting. Advertising 2.0 is about having fun. And the following brands are championing a new thinking in the advertising industry:
EA Sports – EA Sports pulled out all the stops marketing its Need for Speed: Shift release. Users could sign up to win prizes, such as a Coca Cola fridge and play a demo version of the game all within a banner advertisement. EA’s banner ad featured crisp graphics and smooth game play — a far remove from the bop-George-Bush-on-the-head games that populated MySpace in its early days.
iAd Network — Steve Jobs offered a glimpse into a new direction in mobile advertising with the iAd Network. Jobs demonstrated a Toy Story 3 banner ad mock-up in which users could click the ad and be transported to a microsite. The microsite enabled users to play games, download wall paper and use GPS to locate a nearby theater featuring Toy Story 3. Jobs’ vision of advertising 2.0 is one where the ad engages the user in a deep and interactive way.
Groupon — It’s called collective buying power. Groupon borrows principles of crowdsourcing to get incredible discounts for its users. Just sign up, vote on your favorite discount and if enough people like it, you can have it. Groupon provides discounted products and services while ensuring patronage for businesses. It’s truly a win-win advertising model.
Sponsored Tweets — You’ve spent months building your Twitter fan-base to 6,000. Thanks to Sponsored Tweets, it’s time to cash-in. Marketers craft a message and determine the type of Twitterers that should spread it. Then they segment users, much like Google AdWords (location, timing, etc), and Sponsored Tweets suggests you, the Twitter influencer, to pass on their message.
FourSquare — Imagine after checking into your favorite cafe, you’re given a 10% discount on a tall latte. FourSquare is a location-based game that rewards you for checking into your favorite hangouts with badges and mayorships. Gaining 1 million users in its first year, FourSquare is the hottest mobile social network. It’s no surprise it’s trying to monetize its userbase through FourSquare for Businesses. Tasti D-Lite is an early participant in the program — offering discounts to users in two of its New York City locations. Since Tasti D-Lite’s beta test in 2009, Starbucks has also signed up.
Make no mistake, EA Sports, Apple, Groupon, Sponsored Tweets and FourSquare are not individually the answer to advertising 2.0. Each represents a new mode of thinking that will push how users interact with brand marketing. If, collectively, the above examples, what could advertising look like in 5 years? Combining these examples, you’d have a highly interactive and engaging ad platform.
Imagine walking into Borders Books, checking into FourSquare where it serves up a banner ad. Click on the banner ad, and to gain access to deep-discount coupons, you must play a game. You must collect the Dracula and Action Hero badges in the horror and comic sections, respectively. Then Borders gives you a choice of which coupons to download. Because you’re in the mood for a latte, you download the 50% Seattle’s Best coupon, which automatically announces the savings to your Twitterverse. The location-based hunt for discounts might not be the complete vision of mobile advertising, but it includes many of the emerging elements in advertising 2.0: social, interactive, valuable and most importantly, fun.
Read the 2010 social media report:
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