In this contributed article, Michael Clingham, account director and Oliver Wong, account manager at Spark Foundry UK discuss the untapped opportunities for marketers laden within the video games sector, and how brands are taking advantage of this cultural juggernaut today.

Gaming has been a sleeping giant in the media space for almost 50 years. During this time, it has grown its position in the global market to eclipse TV and Cinema combined. By any current measure, it is engaged with by a broad audience and is where we spend a huge portion of our lives. Despite all of this, it’s still a relatively new and fertile ground for brands, only recently emerging as a space with available advertising and partnership capacity as the business model evolves. To date, stacked up to more ‘traditional’ channels, gaming only receives 2% share of media spend. Its underfunding presents brands with a valuable opportunity to achieve greater impact and visibility.

With more behemoth gaming title launches on the horizon, combined with developments in gaming ad tech infrastructure and measurement capabilities, this is set to be the major channel for innovation and development over the coming years. Just recently, WARC Media’s latest Global Ad Trends report highlights how the gaming industry is an untapped opportunity for advertisers generating £144bn in revenue annually.

Our specialist gaming division, Publicis Play, was set-up to help brands with their gaming needs off the back of the boom we saw during the pandemic. Since then, working with some of the world’s most well-known brands in the UK and globally, we've seen certain sectors and channels face challenging economic times, but gaming has seemingly bucked the trend, with billings increasing 39%. So, we ask ourselves what’s next on the gaming wave?

For the past 18 months we’ve been looking into gaming insights, comparing the trends quarter on quarter as part of our quarterly Spark Foundry ‘Insights Accelerated’ Report. Our most recent report shows that despite 59% of game developers believing the sector is in a bad state (due to investor expectations), the overall sentiment towards gaming on social channels continues to be overwhelmingly positive (81% of conversations), whilst Statista forecasts an annual growth rate of 8.67%.

The crucial take-out here being that gaming remains a cultural juggernaut, with the potential to drive huge positive interest and awareness for brands across a range of demographics.

However, some gamers are concerned that titles are appealing to the masses by becoming too “silly”. Call of Duty’s new Fried Chicken gun may have been too big a nugget to swallow for fans awaiting a return of a darker, unforgiving and grittier World-At-War-esque version of the title. As we report on the explosion of opportunity within the market, it is important to remain conscious of the eccentricities of the channel and find the right message to resonate with your audience in this space.

A brilliant example was Greenpeace’s foray into the world of Minecraft to raise awareness of deforestation. With the Bialowieza Forest being cut down IRL, they built a full-scale version within the Minecraft ecosystem – the largest ever built in the game. They pushed out reams of information on the forest and leaned on Twitch influencers to drive concern amongst their followers. Then decided to cut it all down mid-stream to represent the impact it’s having in real life. This, of course, caused a huge shock amongst the gamers, whilst inspiring them to sign petitions to stop deforestation and become real life activists.

Bringing gamers together can lead to impressive results and action. This is why Activision have patented “Video Game Group Dynamic Building”: a mechanic to reward players for streaming their game play and helping eager fans to uncover crucial insights, ‘easter eggs’ and, ultimately, get more enjoyment out of gaming. This puts Activision in a great light, producing increasingly diversified and scalable media opportunities for brands. 

Sport unites people in a way that few other activities can and recently, the gaming world came together to support the first-ever E-sports World Cup Tournament in July and August this year. Already amassing over 100 million hours of viewing time globally, this virtually untapped media environment poses great opportunities in the future for brands to get involved in an area that carries so much passion.

As the gaming ad market awakes, it’ll be a matter of when, not if, brands make it a top consideration in their media planning. Understanding the space and approaching it tactfully with the support of specialists such as Publicis Play will help brands build strong foundations in gaming. By understanding the vast advertising opportunities available, we can chart a course through these options to unlock brand growth.

Safe to say, divided opinions on the importance of gaming can only help grow our industry. After all, games wouldn't have had a split-screen functionality for the best part of 40 years if everyone wanted to be on the same team...