In coming weeks, General Motors will unveil a custom video game on the Internet that lets gamers race GM vehicles such as the Cavalier, Avalanche and Corvette. The car maker thinks its "GM eMotion Challenge" will grab the interest of Web surfers ages 16 through 25, a group GM rarely targets.
PepsiCo, too, is expected to launch a Web video game this month. And Honda Motor's U.S. arm has signed a deal to create its own game. All are following in the footsteps of other big ad spenders, such as Diageo's Burger King and Viacom's Paramount Pictures, that have made online gaming a key part of their Internet strategies.
About 145 million people play computer and video games, according to a study done by the Interactive Digital Software Association, a gaming trade group based in Washington. Online games drew about 35.1 million people in 2000, says Jupiter Media Metrix, a figure that it expects to grow to 104.9 million by 2005.
Forget your image of a gamer being a teenage punk with a skateboard and loud music," says Jeff Odiorne, president of Odiorne Wilde Narraway & Partners, an ad agency that specializes in targeting consumers ages 18 to 34. IDSA's survey of 1,621 U.S. households found that 42 percent of frequent game players are more than 35 years old, while 30 percent are 18 to 35. Many of today's adults spent thousands of hours playing "Asteroids" on Atari or plugging quarters into "Pac-Man" video games at the local candy store.
Corporate games
Companies are struggling to find online marketing tools that are more effective than banner ads. Ford Motor's Ford Motor Canada unit, for example, developed an online game to promote its Escape small sport-utility vehicle. Torrey Galida, vice president of marketing at Ford, says the car maker invested in the game because banner ads are no longer "a great investment of our advertising resources."
The five-minute Ford game, created by Los Angeles game developer, YaYa, allows players to steer an Escape through a race course on the moon. Users then can e-mail the game to friends and issue a challenge to beat their score. The landscape is branded with the Ford logo, and shots of the SUV's interior are prominently featured as players choose the color of the truck they will use to play the game.
GM's coming game will promote the car maker's eMotion brand, a new control-system intelligence that plays a role in how a car's engine and transmission work. In the game, racers calibrate the online vehicles to perform better in different environments, such as high-altitude mountainous areas.
Ford's game attracted about 29,000 unique users to the site over three months. An estimated 12 percent of those users registered with the car maker, while 55 percent gave permission for Ford to pitch them new products. The game was created to echo the look and feel of a Ford commercial in which astronauts drive the Escape on the moon.
Paola Natale, a 30-year-old Web designer from the Bronx in New York City, says she devotes as many as 30 hours a week to playing online games. Among her favorites is "Ultima Online," in which she pretends to be a tailor named Dazzler. Natale says she would take a few minutes out of her day to play corporate online games if they were interesting. During the Super Bowl, HotJobs.com rolled out a video game version of its television ad. In the game, users guide a silver ball through a maze. The game attracted 55,000 players, who spent an average of four minutes on the site, says Marc Karasu, HotJobs.com' chief marketing officer. HotJobs.com used the opportunity to collect 5,000 e-mail addresses.
The online games cost advertisers $150,000 to $500,000 to create, depending on the graphics, says Keith Ferrazzi, chief executive of YaYa. Expenses are sure to climb, though, as companies demand more elaborate games based on role-playing.
The next wave, he says, will include the use of other media, including pagers and cellphones. One scenario being talked about includes a player receiving pages during the day instructing him or her to log on to the game because the player's character is in danger.
SOURCE:
The Wall Street Journal.
