Rovio VP of advertising Jarkko Rajamäki discusses in-game ads approach
As part of our #InGameAdMonth with Pocketgamer.biz we spoke to Rovio’s VP of advertising Jarkko Rajamäki to learn more about the publishing giant's in-game advertising and how developers can take advantage of the new opportunities being created by the format. Rovio was a pioneer in mobile gaming and has seen massive changes in the market. What’s the company’s experience of advertising? We truly have come a long way from banner ads to rewarded video and brand integrations. Back in the days, we had paid and ad-supported versions of our games, and even then both versions had their audience....
Rethinking In-Game Advertising: an interview with Saurav Dutta from InMobi
As part of Rethinking InGame Advertising month we take a dive into a PocketGamer.biz interview surrounding the ongoing evolution of in-game advertising with Saurav Dutta, the Director of Product Marketing at InMobi Saurav's insights allow us to find out more about the numerous ways in which in-game advertising is changing and how the gaming and marketing industry will need to adapt to keep up. Let's take a look at what Saurav had to say. What is the current state of play with regard to in-game advertising? The in-game advertising sector has seen an increase in growth over the past few years...
More Hyper than Casual: The Changing Face of Hyper Casual Games
Featured Images, Left to Right: Fat 2 Fit! (VOODOO, 2021), Count Masters (Freeplay, 2021), and Run of Life (VOODOO, 2021) If you’re involved in the mobile games industry, then you won’t have been able to escape the influence of hyper casual games in recent times. Despite this, it’s still unclear what exactly defines a hyper casual game: is it a genre? A sub-genre? Does it reflect the style, or the substance, of the games classified under it? Looking at the Google Play and Apple App stores doesn’t clarify matters; hyper casual isn’t a genre or a tag on either platform. This suggests a...
Player Insights 2021
What do players really think about ads in mobile games? In conjunction with Pocketgamer.com we decided to find out! Whilst advertising is accepted by consumers if they want to play the games they want for free, the number of ads and different ad formats can have a detrimental effect on the player experience. Here are some of the key takeaways.More...
Developers want ads that don’t piss players off!
Our CTO Chris Wright recently took part in a fireside chat at Pocket Gamer Connects to discuss the potential of InGamePlay brand advertising. He was joined by Hannes Hultgren, CSO at Impact Unified and the discussion was moderated by Dave Bradley from Steel Media. Part of Pocket Gamer's Growth Track the session (available on demand here) took a deep dive into this new native ad format where ads are dynamically integrated into actual gameplay. Chris and Hannes chatted about the basics of in-game advertising, how it compares with other monetization channels as well as implementation tactics...
Mobile Games in a Data Democracy
As technology advances, the role that data plays in game development, particularly for mobile games, has grown to the point where it cannot be ignored; It’s as integral to success in the current climate as any other aspect of development. It’s unsurprising, then, that at the recent GDC Showcase Event, Google chose to shine the spotlight on data analytics, both in their ‘Google for Games Global Insight Report’ as well as their ‘Keys to Next Level Game Growth’ talk. This session unleashed a barrage of helpful tips, both Design and Marketing-related, and it aimed to answer three fundamental...
Playing cards? Drinks cans? Balls? Where will your in-game ad go?
Interview with Chris Wright, CTO at AdInMo When thinking about contextual mobile game ads, developers have to answer one fundamental question: where should the ads go? There are some obvious answers. If it's a racing game, create some trackside banners and put them there. The problem is, not every title is a sports game with a ready-made billboard. This is something AdInMo has thought a lot about. In this video interview with Chris Wright, CTO at AdInMo, he reveals how the company is working on some innovative solutions to making InGamePlay brand advertising work for all genres."It's one...
InMobi – the time is right for ‘mobile product placement’
Interview with David DiAngelo, VP of marketplace development at InMobi Anyone who has seen the movie Castaway will know what product placement is. Tom Hanks stars as a FedEx employee. He flies on a FedEx plane. He opens a lot of FedEx packages. This is a particularly flagrant example, but the thing is: product placement works. In fact, official data says the market was worth more than $11 billion in 2019 in the US alone. So why is there virtually no product placement in mobile gaming? David DiAngelo, VP of marketplace development at InMobi thinks there should be. In an exclusive video...
The Beautiful Chaos of Modern Mobile Games
Pocket Gamer’s 2021 Mobile Games Awards ceremony was home to a surprising number of firsts. It marked the first digital version of the ceremony, past instalments being more traditional physical awards shows, and the first entry into their new ‘Pocket Gamer Hall of Fame’, to say nothing of the myriad new award categories added to the line-up this year. Helmed by the dynamic duo of James Gilmour, a video editor for the site, and Dann Sullivan, the site’s editor, the show took us on a grand tour of the current mobile games landscape, revealing market trends and reflecting the profound impact of...
TinyBit Studios – Annoying ads ‘bite the hand that feeds you’
Interview with Mark Currie, Development Operations Director at TinyBit Studios In a consumer survey by Google, 69 percent of people surveyed said they were motivated to install ad blockers by annoying or intrusive ads. This was quite a shocking thing to publish – from a company that makes around $40 billion a year from digital advertising. But annoying mobile ads are simply a fact of life in the digital realm. Mobile games developers – and players – know this better than most. Indeed, according to a 2020 Pocket Gamer report, 75 percent of developers said they want to find an ad monetization...
Mobile games trends 2021: key takeaways from MEF’s webinar
AdInMo’s CEO Kristan Rivers recently participated in a industry discussion hosted by MEF and moderated by Omdia’s Senior Games Analyst George Jijiashvili, discussing key trends in mobile games. He was joined by Jonathan Stringfield, VP Global Business Marketing, Measurement & Insights, Activision Blizzard Media and Juan Francisco Di Nucci, CEO, AWG. Here, we round up some of the key takeaways from the discussion. 1. Mobile games contribute up to 70% of total spend across all games platforms and according to industry analysts Omdia is expected to generate about $130B in 2025. (George...
Curse of the click and the future of in-game advertising
Kristan Rivers, CEO of AdInMo, explores how the ‘Curse of the Click’ is holding back the creative potential of in-game advertising as a brand advertising channel. Back in the day the phrase “nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM” was a symbol of a brand based on service reputation and purchase decisions based on a safe bet. But what about the solutions that were better tailored to your business? Solutions you’d never discover if you didn’t innovate? Sadly, when it comes to mobile advertising the ‘IBM effect’ is still alive and kicking in the guise of the ad industry’s obsession with how...
YT Branding Group – Ad measurement was great; now it’s a curse
Interview with Yvonne Tocquigny, partner at TY Branding Group “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half”. This sentence, attributed to department store owner John Wanamaker, has become a legendary comment on the fundamental problem of advertising. Measurement Of course, digital 'solves' this problem. Online, every ad is clickable (or at least viewable) and can therefore be tracked. But digital measurement has become its own curse. It leaves little room for brand advertising, where the goal is awareness, not direct action. Yvonne Tocquigny,...
“Gamers are not who brands think they are”
On 18th February our CEO Kristan Rivers will participate in an industry panel hosted by the Mobile Ecosystem Forum looking at the top trends for mobile games in 2021. One of his fellow panellists will be Jonathan Stringfield, Global Business Marketing from Activision Blizzard Media who recently published the findings of a quantitative study called the Gallery of the Gamer. The study provides some fascinating insights into the complexity of the gaming audience. We saw Jonathan present the findings at The Drum’s Predictions 2021 . Here’s our key takeaways and why mobile games players are so...
“You can’t sell an ice cream with a click-through”
Interview with Kristan Rivers, CEO at AdInMo Every year people spend around $60 billion on ice cream. That's a lot of lolly. Ice cream is widely advertised on TV and on billboards. But in mobile games? Not so much. There's an obvious reason for this. Most ad formats e.g. reward videos and–interstitials etc – support measurable performance advertising. They exist to encourage players to do something. Quite often this 'something' is to download a competitor's game. It's certainly not to improve brand recall of popular frozen desserts. AdInMo’s CEO Kristan Rivers knows this well. "All the...
