profiles Elizabeth Harz senior vice-president, global media, EA ■ ADVERTISER INTERVIEW


Industry Gaming succeeds where TV has failed TOPIC.


Brand integration in gaming has great potential, as consumers actively want to see it. ButMartina Lacey finds out why brands are still reluctant to use the medium and what EA is doing to change that.


In the sometimes muddy waters of branded content, in-game advertising has an advantage over other platforms: its users actually want it. Unlike in TV, where brand integration can be easily detected and frowned upon by consumers, gamers welcome advertisers into the gaming world. A recent ESPN/TNS poll found that


consumers who play sports games felt that brand integration made the game more realistic. The same gamers claimed that having recognisable brands in games made them more enjoyable to play, something which is key for EA’s senior vice president of global media, Elizabeth Harz. “Part of the huge consideration is


how consumers will feel about brand integrations,” says Harz. “Clearly in this space you cannot put an irrelevant brand in the game, it will spoil the experience and EA will never do that. We onlyplace brands that will enhance or extend gameplay, not detract or spoil it, and consumers have been incredibly receptive of brand perception.”


FINDING A MARKET POSITION It could be argued that in-game advertising has had the benefit of learning from TV and cinema, which have experimented with brand integrations far more than gaming has. However, that does not mean that it is all plain-sailing for the medium. Harz admits that there is still work


to be done in order to get marketers completely comfortable with a platform which has now been around for a while. Marketers are yet to think of gaming as an important pillar to an overall


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opportunities for brands. Brands are now more willing to try and do different things due to all of the different environments where they can now reach consumers,” she says. Similar to other platforms there is


growing demand for measurement and proof of ROI; something that EA is trying to tackle with its budding partnership with Nielsen. To Harz it is clear that if EA is going to steal marketshare from more established players in the media marketplace, in- game advertising has to deliver tangible results in order to prove its worth. “Having Nielsen behind us is just one


Harz’s career history: Yahoo • CNet • non-profit sector, orchestrating citizen exchanges between the US and the former sovient Union


strategy, and not a niche platform which is used as a one off. “We need to get marketers thinking


about in-game advertising – or what I call interactive entertainment – in the same way that they think about print or TV. That is still not happening.” The audience is still often regarded as niche, but the development of technology has made the platform more accessible to consumers, whether via traditional game consoles, hand- held consoles, smartphones or social networks. According to Harz, the new found availability of gaming has made the medium more attractive to advertisers than ever. “All of these different platforms


have given brands many new ways to engage, while traditional opportunities that may have been more static are going away. You are seeing much richer


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“We need to get marketers thinking about in-game advertising in the same way that they think about print or TV.”


more tool in our armour. We started working with them in March; they really noticed the shift in consumer time spend and wanted to make sure that their measurement process address what people are doing. “Nielsen will be providing the third party validation and the insights that marketers are accustomed to,” says Harz. “Through the data, marketers will be able to understand impact on purchase. At the end of the day brands are participating


in marketing communications to sell stuff and we want to help them.” Through a program of education, with hard stats to prove its worth, Harz hopes gaming will carve out its rightful place in the media mix. ○


EA by numbers


8,000 Number of employees worldwide


27 The number of titles that sold more than one million copies in fiscal 2010


125m the number of units of the Sims franchise that have been sold to date


M&M JULY EZINE 2010 9


JULY DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE


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