Unleashing Gaming as the new ad frontier – What brands need to know

The gaming industry has rapidly evolved from mere entertainment into a powerful cultural and economic force, influencing the digital landscape in profound ways. As gaming continues to shape our society, economy, and culture, it has become crucial to understand its growing significance.

In the run-up to GAMEXX 2024, Adgully’s marquee event for the gaming and e-sports industry which will be held in Mumbai on November 6, a special trilogue was held today on ‘Gaming the New Ad Frontier: Blending Brands and Worlds’. The session was chaired by Naresh Gupta, Managing Partner, Bang in the Middle, and the panelists included Krishnarao Buddha, Senior Category Head, Parle Products, and Ankit Gupta, Head of Apps and Games, India Sellside, Google.

Commencing the discussions, Naresh Gupta remarked, “About 80% of the online population in the world are gamers. So, some or the other kind of game is being played online at any point of time and it isn’t actually something really new. I saw 30 years ago a brand creating a game, where you were supposed to catch the beer in the crate and some rewards will happen. Those were the early days, and now things have moved on and started to become what they’ve started to become.” He went on to ask the panelists about the current market trends and sought to understand from the evolution perspective as to what are the options for brands today.

Ankit Gupta responded by saying, “Gaming is a very, very exciting field and our team actually works with a lot of these gaming developers and makes sure that their ad inventory is available for advertisers so that they can reach out to these engaged users. So, users are very engaged in these games and if we have a right ad placement for the right user at the right time, it gives value to our advertisers. Our team has been working continuously with the top app developers to make sure that they understand their users and make sure that the right users are available for advertisers to target.”

Speaking about the Ad Format, he said, “We also work on new ad formats which can help advertisers to place their brand safely in the games. There has been a lot of evolution in the type of ad formats and we are making sure that they are compliant with the IAB formats.”

Sharing Parle’s perspective, Krishnarao Buddha said, “Parle being an extremely mass brand, we are very excited about gaming as an option, though we find several challenges when it comes to advertising. However, it also gives us an opportunity to reach a certain section of the audience through gaming. At the same time, we look at not just gaming, but having presence overall on digital platforms. We work with several platforms which help us give access to several publishers. And gaming is a sub-section or a part of that vertical. While we have a strong conviction that gaming as an opportunity from an advertiser’s perspective is immense, somehow we’ve not really been able to utilize it in an appropriate manner yet.”

Buddha believes that there hasn’t been an evolution in advertising. He noted, “We are not really seeing the evolution of gaming, be it talking about, let's say, serious gaming, or for that matter, casual gaming. In both cases, we have not really seen a very, very strong evolution of advertising. But I’m extremely positive about the fact that we have an immense opportunity to leverage gaming as a solution in the entire funnel.”