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May 24, 2005
Product Placements in Video Games
I blogged about this a few days ago and saw this article today on product placements in video games.
We are already used to big name brands showing up in video games. I wonder how long it will be until this kind of benefit can be rolled out in a localized fashion. For example, instead of Pizza Hut, the local pizza joint down the road shows up in Grand Theft Auto. Not that this kind of placement is going to be for everyone, but for youth marketing, it would be pretty hard to mass media as we know it today to compete with it.
It's not really even a technology problem anymore, it's more a challenge of an ad program to manage the minutiae. At a base level, it is really just a glorified banner ad except with a more sophisticated display engine - a video console instead of a web page.
Who knows? Maybe someday video games will be entirely subsidized by contextual ads.
Posted by Derek Leverington at May 24, 2005 10:27 PM
Comments
As long as you still get to fill the Pizza Hut employees full of hot lead (I'm thinking of the movie Falling Down - [William Foster picks up the flat hamburger he just ordered, comparing it to the picture behind the counter]
William Foster: Can anybody tell me what's wrong with this picture?). It would also be neat to carjack the delivery boy's ride. Although on a less destructive note - Advertisers could add mini-games within the game that would be a fun diversion. So if you go into the Pizza Hut you can either get a job delivering pizza or maybe answering some trivia will get you some credits or inventory items. Think hand-to-hand combat with a pizza cutter...
Posted by: David at June 3, 2005 11:02 AM
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