IAB Gets Their Game On with Inaugural PlayFronts

In a world of perpetual distraction media fragmentation and multitasking Zoe Soon Vice President Experience Center at the IAB sees gaming as a place where marketers can reach a focused audience quotAdvertisers are needing to look elsewhere with the decline in linear TVquot she asserts quotIn a postCOVID world it39s hard to ignore the rising consumer attention that39s going to gamingquot One need only to look at how a game like Wordle has brought the world together around a game in a positive way to see the powerful impact that games have in our entertainment livesAds in videogames are not new There has been advertising in games for decades which begs the question why is now the time to add a new gaming Upfront quotI think it39s the perfect stormquot Soon says For years advertising has not been able to crack the quotattention oasisquot which is gaming People spend over six hours a week gamingOne of the main objectives of the PlayFronts is to give the buying community an opportunity to take another look at the definitions of and various categories within gaming while also dispelling myths about the audiences that participate One of the barriers that will likely be addressed is the issue that some brands have with potential associations with being seen in a firstperson shooter or more intense game Soon acknowledges that be a challenge but ultimately the marketer does have full control on which games they appear in quotI think there is a lack of research in the industry as to if there are negative brand effects on being next to shooter content which admittedly is a large portion of gaming contentquot she says quotBut don39t throw the baby out with the bathwater There are a lot of controls for buyers Marketers can target by game title It39s an amazing way to contextually target You can see what action will trigger the ad and where it will be placed You can even see by frame where the ad will be placed and what it will be next to There39s also a lot of technology that39s being developed that leverages AI to disable the ad when certain factors occur For example if someone swears over Discord while playing a game at a point where your ad is supposed to show the AI will suppress your adquotAnother reason that an IAB PlayFronts is on this year39s agenda relates to last year39s release of the Gaming and eSports Advertising Framework developed jointly by the IAB and IAB UK a taxonomy of standard terms and ways of categorizing to make tagging easier which in addition makes the blocking of certain areas of discomfort for a particular advertiser easier when running ads in games programmaticallyWith the massive addition of new video content by non or lightadsupported streamers on top of the decades of rich beloved library content that is now easily accessible by consumers the supply curve has exceeded the demand for advertising curve and lowered the attention for content subsidy value proposition that had been in place for decadesSoon sees gaming advertising as one possible way to provide additional value to move closer to equilibrium She points to Simulmedia39s recent launch of PlayerWON as a small example quotThey are mashing up OTT ads with gaming ads and if you watch ads beforehand you receive tokens that you can use in the gamequot she explains quotPlayers really like it because these are tangible rewards and the value exchange is completely understandable to themquot Soon also sees a lot less adresistance in the mobile freetoplay game sectorWhile gaming specialty units within some media agencies do exist such as Omnicom Media Group39s Zero Code which was actually established nearly 20 years ago and Dentsu39s Dentsu Gaming division which launched in 2021 there still seems to be ambiguity within many agencies about which buyers are the goto for gaming ads The IAB is extremely excited about the potential for creating a marketplace for ingame advertising through the PlayFronts While this year is a single day event Soon expects that it will go multiday in the future She also believes that while agencies may jump on board at a faster rate on this first event marketers will quickly followThe IAB PlayFronts will take place on April 5th at Convene in New York CityIAB PlayFronts Presenter Schedule Time and Presenter920 am 940 am Meta940 am 1000 am Activision Blizzard1000 am 1020 am Frameplay1105 am 1125 am Niantic1125 am 1145 am Admix1150 am 1200 pm Unity100 pm 120 pm Zynga120 pm 140 pm Bidstack145 pm 205 pm Riot Games210 pm 235 pm Anzu315 pm 335 pm Twitch335 pm 345 pm IGN350 pm 410 pm SuperAwesome an Epic Games company410 pm 430 pm PlayerWONamp8482Click the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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IAB Gets Their Game On with Inaugural PlayFronts

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Jeff Minsky

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