8月23日，Honda 汽车公司布隆伯格为它新款的汽车CR-Z策划了一起社交游戏广告运动。

这些广告作为Honda公司首次发布在社交网络上的广告出现在Facebook公司一款已经拥有260万用户的叫“轿车小镇”的虚拟游戏里。游戏中玩家可以收集和定制属于自己的轿车。

商品的商标转移到社交网络上发布是为了接触到那些有闲暇时间并有耐心看完商标信息的受众。

virtual goods

“也许每天从有20万的人开车从放置在洛杉矶的广告牌旁路过，但人们对广告的理解比不上当广告出现在‘轿车小镇’上时来得深刻。”Honda的广告发言人Steve Center在一次访谈会上如是说。“市场经销商和游戏开发商将会发现他们建立的这个新的渠道有巨大了利润可图。”

Dove肥皂和Breyers冰激凌已经在“TikiFarm”游戏上发布广告，而Energizer电池则在“FamilyFeud”上发布自己的销售广告。

Farmville与黑手党的战争

纽约Emarketer公司的研究员的调查数据表明，与2009年相比，今年全球在社交游戏和社交程序上的广告总投入增长了60%，预计明年该数值将达到2.93亿美元。相比之下，2009年投入在电视上的广告费用只有1.669亿美元（据ZenithOpti媒体称）。

随着广告转移到网上和市场营销商跟随他们的顾客进入到网络中，在报纸和杂志等传统媒体上印刷的广告受到极大的冲击。ZenithOpti媒介有限公司小组称，网络广告占所有方式的广告投放比例将从2009年的12.7%上升到17.1%。

Facebook上排名第一的游戏制造商Zynga包含了Farmville、Texas HoldEm Poker和Mafia Wars Game游戏的所有权，所以据说有大量的广告商在和它进行交涉。

该公司商标广告总经理Manny Anekal说：“我们相信如果能让广告的产品商标在网络上也能取到在电视上播放效果的话，那么广告无疑将在Zynga上占据重要的地位，而这一想法可由最具测量性的网络和最吸引人的广告整合实现”

作为一家在Facebook上售卖广告的伦敦数码广告代理公司，TBG 数码的首席经理Simon Mansell说“Facebook的大部分增长得益于社交类游戏的玩家有很多。”“用户花如此多的时间来玩社交类游戏，以致于在游戏里的停工期他们会对提供商作出反应。

restaurant-city-sims-ads

微软公司的Bing搜索引擎

根据Bing搜索引擎的市场高级主管Lynn Rowe Girotto的说法，微软公司给那些成为Facebook页面中Bing搜索引擎的“粉丝”们赠送在Farmville游戏中的虚拟货币。

该举动导致的结果是在Facebook上的Bing搜索引擎又新增了42.5万的“粉丝”，“并且这些“粉丝”中的70%将在下个月继续访问Bing搜索引擎”，该主管接着说到。

“只要它运作得好，我认为这是一件好事，而不是所谓的过度侵入。”Electronic Arts的首席执行官John Schappert在一次访谈上说：“这补充了游戏开发的费用并给这些游戏的开发提供一了早期收入，因为现在很多人都不愿意在这些游戏上花费哪怕是十分钱。

Google游戏

Goole在这个月的早些时候购入了一家名为Jambool的专门提供虚拟货币的软件公司和一家名为Slide的开发制作游戏和迪士尼在七月以5.63亿美元购入Facebook上第四大的游戏制作商playdom。日本最大的软件销售商Softbank在Zynga上投资了1.58亿美元，Electronic Arts公司在11月份以4亿美元收购了Playfish游戏制作公司。

在游戏中发布商标广告的商家不仅发布广告，而且还花费钱财来帮助社交程序以吸引更多的顾客。美国家庭保险就开发了一款叫“I am Fam”的游戏来让玩家通过建立一个自己的化身，生活在一间有邻居的房子并可以在本地的商店购物。而雀巢公司则创作一个玩家可以找到隐藏食物原材料（如鲑鱼和鸡肉）并获得升级的游戏。

“仍然太小”

“我们现在在Facebook上有20家独立的公司有投放广告。”一家为美国家庭保险公司和雀巢公司开发游戏的名为Wild Tangent的广告新闻发言人Dave Madden说。同时，Wild Tangent为报答获得虚拟货币和物品的玩家，在游戏中也建立了一个广告平台来让商标获得少量的利益。

“这些广告可以强行引起注意并且它们不能从游戏中移除” Dave Madden说。“我们已经看到我们的广告业务稳步增长并且可以说它将增长到原来的3倍的业绩也不是不可能。但并不是每个人都能接受在游戏中的广告，包括一些游戏开发商本身。世界上最大的网络游戏开发商之一的Bigpoint GmbH认为“对我们来说市场仍然过小而不能引起兴趣。”首席决策官Heiko Hubertz在上周的访谈中说。

他说，“现在我们主要靠我们提供的有些赚钱而不是通过为游戏售卖广告”估计在Facebook上玩休闲游戏的玩家每月会为游戏中的需要花费的服务支付10欧元，而那些忠实的玩家则会支付40欧元。

根据Emarketer的报道，今年在Facebook上投放的总的广告费用预计达12亿8千万美元，社交媒体对市场营销商来说将是及其重要的。很多公司将社交媒体看成他们网络营销投资的核心而不是看做一次“试验”， 帮助过Nestle SA、The Gap 公司和PepsiCo 公司策划社交营销运动的Wildfire Interactive公司的创立者Victoria Ransom说。

“要想了解年轻一代的想法，我们就必须把自己变成他们中的一员。”Honda公司的 Center说到。“年轻人就在网上，他们靠网络过活，在网络上联系。我们要到目标客户喜欢待的地方找他们。”（译者：唐统权）

Cafe World Releases 80s Decor

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg — Honda Motor Corp.’s campaign for its new CR-Z car features the hybrid vehicle in some colorful roadside billboards that can’t be seen from a freeway.

The ads are on display in Facebook Inc.’s virtual game “Car Town,” as Honda advertises on the social-network site for the first time today. The game, which allows users to collect and customize cars, has 2.6 million users.

Brands are turning to social networks to reach an audience with leisure time on its hands and the patience to sit through branded messages. Walt Disney Co., Electronic Arts Inc. and Google Inc.

have all bought games makers in recent months to benefit from millions of users signing up to play.

“You can have 200,000 people drive past a billboard on an L.A. freeway everyday, but you don’t have the same level of engagement as when people select “Car Town,’” Steve Center, Honda’svice president for advertising, said in an interview. “Marketers and game developers will discover they are building powerful channels and that there’s enormous property for sale.”

Dove Soap and Breyers Ice Cream are running ads on “TikiFarm,” while Energizer batteries are promoted on “Family Feud.” Microsoft Corp., Cascadian Farm Organic and 7-Eleven have allmarketed themselves on “Farmville,” a game with more than 62 million users that lets users try their hand at farming. A player grows and harvests crops, purchases items like shovels tractors andrakes and raises livestock.

Farmville, Mafia Wars

Global advertising in social games and applications will total $293 million next year, a 60 percent increase from 2009, according to researcher EMarketer Inc. in New York. By comparison,expenditure on television advertising was $166.9 billion in 2009, according to ZenithOpti media.

As ads move online and marketers follow consumers to the Internet, traditional advertising in print newspapers and magazines has suffered declines. Internet ads are forecast to make up 17.1percent of the ad market in 2012 from 12.7 percent in 2009, ZenithOpti media Group Ltd. a London-based ad buyer owned by Publicis Groupe SA, said last month.

Zynga Inc., the top maker of Facebook games whose titles include “Farmville,” “Texas HoldEm Poker” and “Mafia Wars Game,” said it’s in talks with numerous brands about advertising.

“We believe that advertising will play a larger role at Zynga by providing brands the reach of TV, the measurability of online and the most engaging ad integrations available,” said MannyAnekal, director of brand advertising at the company.

Microsoft’s Bing

“A lot of the growth around Facebook has been because people play social games so much,” said Simon Mansell, chief executive officer of TBG Digital, a London-based digital ad agency that alsosells ads on Facebook. “Users spend so much time playing that during downtime in the game they can respond to offers.”、
Microsoft Corp. gave virtual currency to “Farmville” users who became fans of the Facebook page of the Bing search engine, according to Lynn Rowe Girotto, senior director for Bing marketing.

Users then received status updates linking Bing search results to “Farmville.”

The result was 425,000 new fans of Bing on Facebook and 70 percent of those fans visiting Bing in the next month, she said.

“As long as it’s done well, and it’s not overly intrusive, I think it’s a good thing,” John Schappert, Electronic Arts’s chief operating officer, said in an interview. “It does offsetthe development cost and provide an early revenue stream for these games, for which many people don’t spend a dime on now.”

Google’s Games

Earlier this month, Google bought Jambool Inc., a provider of virtual-currency software and Slide Inc., a maker of games and apps for social sites. Walt Disney snapped up Playdom Inc., thesecond-biggest maker of games on Facebook, in July for $563 million. Japan’s Softbank Corp. invested 13.5 billion yen ($158 million) in Zynga and Electronic Arts in November bought games makerPlayfish Inc. for $400 million.

More than just advertising in games, brands are also spending money developing social applications to attract consumers. American Family Insurance created the “IamFam” game that allows a userto build an avatar, settle into a neighborhood, outfit a house and shop at a local store.

Nestle SA’s Purina PetCare Co unit created the “Friskies Wonderland Quest II’’ game, where users find hidden food ingredients like salmon and chicken to move onto higher levels.

‘Still Too Small’

“We’re running 20-odd campaigns now on Facebook with advertisers,” said Dave Madden, a vice president for ad sales at Wild Tangent, a games company that worked with American Family Insuranceand Nestle Purina. Wild Tangent also developed an in-game ad platform where brands air short commercials in return for users receiving virtual currency and items.

“These ads have to add value and they cannot take away from the game,” he said. “We’ve seen solid growth in our ads business and to say they would triple is a relatively achievableforecast.”

Not everyone is embracing in-games advertising, including some of the developers. Bigpoint GmbH, one of the world’s largest online-game providers, sees the market as “still too small for itto be interesting for us,” Chief Executive Officer Heiko Hubertz said in an interview last week.

“For now we make more money from promoting our own games than by selling ads for the games,” he said, estimating that casual players of social games on Facebook spend 10 euros a month onvalue-added services versus hard-core gamers who can spend 40 euros.

With total ad spending on Facebook estimated at $1.28 billion this year, according to EMarketer, social media is vital to marketers.

Companies view social media as a core part of their online marketing spending, and not an “experiment,” said Victoria Ransom, the founder of Wildfire Interactive Inc., which has helped NestleSA, The Gap Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. build social marketing campaigns.

“One of the ways we’re going after younger folks is to be in the places they are,” Honda’s Center said. “Young people are online; they live online and communicate online. We want to catchpeople where their interests lie.”(source:businessweek)