NBC: Gaming the Next Frontier for Ad Placements

In-game placement is getting to the point where it’s more than just early adopter advertisers that can target gamers, according to Larry Olevitch, NBC Local Media Group’s senior vice president of local media sales. The benefit, as we’ve mentioned, is that it’s targeted marketing in front of key demographics that in some cases get repeated exposure with the media (read: hours a day).

Combine that with the fact that more gaming consoles are online and more gamers are playing online, and you can drop in ads on a dynamic basis that is targeted down to the DMA level, says Olevitch. An example he gave was a big Obama sign placed in the background of the stage in Guitar Hero during the month of September.

An even cooler example: During a game of NBALive, taking place at Denver’s Pepsi Center, Coca-Cola can launch a guerrilla marketing campaign to drop in ads throughout the virtual stadium. Pricing wasn’t mentioned but I bet it’s a heck of a lot less than Pepsi paid for the real life stadium sponsorship.