作者：Sarah Kessler

根据市场调研公司eMarketer报告显示，从2009年开始，社交游戏开发者在广告宣传上的开销大大提高了。毫无疑问，广告商也注意到了这个变化，如今在美国共有5600多万的社交游戏用户，这个品牌虚拟产品市场正在迅速壮大。但是广告商所看到的不只有社交游戏的普及性，同时他们也看到了社交游戏作为一种“环境”能够对他们的广告项目产生巨大的影响。

Playfish全球市场营销高级总监Robert Tomkinson说道：“媒介采购员和广告商们都知道自己想要的是什么。他们想要扩大广告影响力，想要有明确的目标市场选择，想要得到较大的成效。而如果他们能够采用正确的方法，找到属于自己的品牌机遇，他们将能够得到所有想要的东西。”

Tomkinson和其他社交游戏产业中的佼佼者们在最近召开的“社交游戏峰会”上发表了相关讲话，其谈话内容主要是针对不同的社交游戏代表不同的品牌，并将给整个市场带来巨大的发展机遇展开的。

以下是社交游戏取得巨大成功的6大原因：

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1）游戏广告是针对于用户粘性而不是用于吸引用户眼球

追溯到2010年7月，Zynga与有机农场主Cascadian Farm合作，在《FarmVille》首次推出Cascadian Farm蓝莓，这是《FarmVille》首度将品牌整合推进游戏。据调查，比起其他农作物，共有5亿多名玩家选择购买并栽培这款品牌农作物。来自Zynga的消息，从这次的合作可以看出，大众的品牌认识度整整提高了550%之多。

沃尔沃（游戏邦注：汽车品牌），H&M和MTV Networks也曾经尝试推出品牌性的虚拟产品，让用户能够自行选择购买或者与该品牌进行更深一步的交流。

另外一种推广社交游戏品牌的策略是“推广墙”，这种方法已经出现在很多游戏平台上了。品牌会提供虚拟奖励给那些对他们用户粘性有贡献的玩家，例如那些接受他们的调查或观看他们新产品的宣传视频的玩家们。

广告交易平台TrialPay战略主管Peter Wexler表示：“上述的例子都与品牌息息相关。传统的广告方式是通过电视，报刊，公交车两侧的‘宣传板’进行传播的，而游戏广告却是完全不同的。比起传统广告对视觉冲击性的重视，游戏广告更想要通过用户粘性达到目的。”

2）社交游戏帮助Facebook赢得了大量用户

比起谷歌，雅虎，YouTube，微软，维基百科和亚马逊的上网用户总和，仍有更多的美国网民花费更多的时间于Facebook上。这也是广告商选择Facebook作为他们主要的广告宣传平台的重要原因，在这个拥有5亿多用户群的社交平台上，每个人都在频繁地进行着交流，甚至包括游戏交流。

Wexler描述道：“当你与其他广告商谈论Facebook的时候，你将发现不论是一个代理机构还是一个品牌公司，它们都极度渴望能够进入Facebook这个平台。但是仍有很多广告商不知道如何做才能取得有效的广告宣传。其实答案很简单，只要它拥有足够强大的用户群体。”

3）比起电视上的黄金时段节目，游戏更能吸引观众

社交游戏上的广告不只因为视觉效果吸引人，更是因为在这个平台上有非常多的玩家在关注着它。据调查，每天大约有3000多万玩家在玩《FarmVille》，而最著名的电视黄金时段节目《Dancing With the Stars》最多却只能吸引2400万观众。

比起电视，用户更容易接触社交游戏。在过去，很多游戏需要玩家购买昂贵的掌机，并严格设置了很多游戏壁垒，这使得很多游戏的普及受到了重挫。但是如今的社交游戏却主要是对玩家免费开放的，所以这也可以说是社交游戏如此受欢迎的原因之一吧。

Tomkinson说道：“iPhone的出现使玩家们能够随身携带游戏设备，同时它的诞生也大大扩展了整个游戏市场。如今在游戏市场上，免费游戏的总量甚至超过了所有掌机游戏的数量之和。也就是说，不管是谁都能够简单地进行游戏了。”

除了拉拢了很多电视观众，社交游戏同时也扩展了自己的利基市场（游戏邦注：指针对企业的优势细分出来的市场，而这里的利基市场则是指游戏玩家市场）。大多数社交游戏都很容易上手，例如Zynga的新手教程甚至只需短短3分钟时间。

Zynga的品牌广告主任Manny Anekal宣称他很讨厌“社交游戏”这个词，因为这个词把他们公司所创造的所有产品都定义为“只能与家人和朋友一起进行的休闲活动”。比起传统的玩家信息，社交游戏更能够帮助游戏开发者了解玩家的数量构成情况。

4）社交游戏广告并不局限于虚拟广告

社交游戏的品牌化并不只是停留在网络上。7-11就曾经在虚拟世界和现实世界同时进行产品宣传。7-11与Zynga合作，在7-11实体店中贩卖带有《FarmVille》符号的商品（如冰咖啡，思乐冰等）。当玩家买了一款特定商品后，他还必须在游戏中完成一个指定任务，并以此获得7-11的虚拟产品。

在6周时间内，这个活动遍及美加地区7000多个连锁店。7-11的冰激凌销售额在一个月时间内就远远超过了原先的销售预测。共有300多万个游戏代码被“赎回”，纯净水上的游戏代码赎回率更是高达60%。

另一品牌Green Giant同样也在2010年5月于全美4000家目标百货的生鲜蔬果上附上条码贴纸，每个购买这些特色商品的玩家都能够在Green Giant网站上免费换取5个《FarmVille》游戏币。

5）品牌可以成为游戏体验的一部分

在虚拟游戏世界中，品牌可以不只是被当成广告看板（尽管这也是选择之一），它也可以成为游戏中的一部分。

一个重要的方法是，品牌可以在原先的游戏基础上添加一个新的元素。举个例子来说，当Zynga在《FarmVille》中利用虚拟工具Airship与美国保险公司armers Insurance展开合作后，获得虚拟飞艇Airship的玩家将能为其农田获得保护。同时在推广活动后，玩家仍能将Airship安置在农田里，这使得Airship的印象数持续增加。

另外一种方法是通过在游戏中添加一个用户交流部件使品牌成为游戏体验的一部分。在一个“黑色星期五”，老海军（游戏邦注：美国服装品牌）在CrowdStar（全球第二大社交游戏开发商）的社交游戏中建立了一个虚拟商店，CrowdStar旗下的游戏《It Girl》玩家可以在这个虚拟商店里购买老海军的虚拟服装并赠送给朋友。在这个虚拟商店里，玩家的所有需求也都能够得到满足，但是他们同样也必须完成相应任务才能获得虚拟货币。

Weler说道：“他们已经把自己的品牌完全融入到游戏体验中了。即使达成了再多交易获得再大收益，对老海军而言最重要的还是，通过这种合作他们能够让社交游戏的用户群真正了解他们的品牌。”

6）品牌能够奖励那些与他们进行互动的玩家

购买了armers Insurance的虚拟飞艇的《FarmVille》玩家能够得到保护，在老海军虚拟商店中完成任务的CrowdStar玩家能够获得虚拟货币，在“推广墙”活动中通过观看食品广告或接受调查的玩家能够获得虚拟货币或虚拟商品。通过这些案例，我们可以看出为了免费玩游戏，玩家既可以选择付费也可以选择与相关品牌进行更深一步的接触。

Wexler表示：“当玩家与品牌进行互动时，他们将有机会获得奖励。品牌也并不是想通过这种方法展示自己，他们更多的是想借此获得用户粘性。因为用户粘性对于广告商来说才是真正的价值所在。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

6 Reasons Why Social Games Are the Next Advertising Frontier

by Sarah Kessler

Ad spending on social gaming increased 60% since 2009, according to eMarketer. No doubt advertisers have noticed that 56 million Americans are playing social games and that the branded virtual goods market is booming. But more than just social gaming’s growing popularity has gotten attention from advertisers. Social games also represent an environment that is largely conducive to advertising.

“Media buyers and advertisers are recognizing that this is what they want,” explained Robert Tomkinson, Playfish’s senior director of global marketing. “What they want is massive reach, they want targeting, they want performance. And you can have all of these by forming branding opportunities in the right way.”

Tomkinson and other leaders in the social gaming industry recently spoke at the Social Gaming Summit about the huge opportunity that social games represent for brands. Here are six reasons they gave for why social game advertising is a growing success:

1. Advertising in Games Is About Engagement, Not Eyeballs

Back in July players of the the most popular Facebook social game, FarmVille, had for the first time an option to plant a specific branded crop — Cascadian Farm blueberries — on their virtual farms. In more than 500 million cases, players chose to purchase and plant the branded blueberries instead of something else. According to Zynga, unaided brand awareness increased 550% as a result.

Volvo, H&M and MTV Networks have also experimented with branded virtual goods that users can choose to purchase or acquire through interaction with the brand.

Another common strategy for brands in social games is an “offer wall” inside of many games. Brands can exchange virtual rewards for engagement, like taking a survey or watching a video about a new product.

“In both cases you’re actually engaging with the brand,” explained Peter Wexler, the director of strategic partnerships for transactional advertising platform TrialPay. “This is different than in traditional ads within TV and print and on the side of the bus that flies by on Eighth Avenue. That’s all sort of eyeballs, so how many eyeballs do I have on a magazine, on a paper… you can vary on actual engagement.”

2. Social Games Reach the Facebook Audience

When online, the average American spends more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined. A significant part of that interaction includes social games, making them an ideal alternative to display ads for advertisers who want to reach Facebook’s giant, 500 million-person user base.

“If you talk to advertisers, and you talk to them about Facebook, every single one of them, whether it’s an agency or the brand, they’re all extremely interested in participating in the Facebook platform,” explained Wexler during his presentation. “And most of them are pretty unsure of how to effectively do that… this is where consumers are available.”

3. Some Games Have Bigger Audiences Than Prime Time TV

Advertising in social games might not be solely about eyeballs, but there are definitely a critical mass of people who are playing them. About about 30 million players per day play the most popular social game, FarmVille. The most popular prime time television show last week, Dancing With the Stars, had about 24 million viewers.

Social gaming is becoming just as accessible, if not more accessible, than television. While most gaming platforms in the past have required expensive consoles and other barriers to entry, most social games are free to play.

“[The] iPhone put a gaming device in everybody’s pocket and massively expanded the market,” explained Tomkinson during his presentation. “And of course, free-to-play social games massively expand the market to bigger than all the console games combined. This is something that anybody can use.”

In addition to broaching television’s audience size, social games are also broadening the niche that is often associated with gaming. Most games are fairly easy to learn. Zynga game tutorials, for instances, are shorter than three minutes.

Zynga’s director of brand advertising Manny Anekal said in a presentation that he hates the term “social games” because the experiences that his company creates are “just fun with your family friends. Simple as that.” Being such, social games can easily reach demographics far beyond the typical “gamer” profile.

4. Advertising With Social Games Isn’t Restricted to Virtual

The branding potentials for social games need not remain online. About six months ago, 7-Eleven straddled the space between virtual and physical worlds by tying products like iced coffee and slurpees with FarmVille Games. When a customer bought a promoted product, he or she was directed to perform a task in the game to unlock a 7-Eleven virtual good.

The campaign ran in 7,000 stores for six weeks. The branded ice cream surpassed the brand’s sales forecast within the first week. More than 3 million codes were redeemed, and water had a 60% redemption rate.

Green Giant also explored the space in between virtual games and the physical world by giving away FarmVille Cash with select produce purchases.

5. Brands Can Be Part of the Experience

In “virtual world” games, brands can do more than hang out on billboards (though that is an option, too). They can become part of the game.

One way brands have done this is to add an element to the gameplay itself. When Farmers Insurance branded a blimp in the FarmVille game, for instance, players who chose to put it on their farms had their crops protected during the 10 days of the promotion. The branded blimp continued to float over their farms even after the promotion was over.

Another way brands become part of the experience is by adding an interactive component to the landscape. On Black Friday, Old Navy launched a virtual store in CrowdStar’s social game, It Girl. Players could purchase Old Navy virtual clothing or gift it to their friends. The virtual store displayed real-world offers, and players could also complete quests that would earn them virtual currency.

“They’ve very much integrated their brand into the game experience,” Wexler said about the integration. “It’s not so much about transactions and direct revenue for Old Navy in this situation, it’s about putting the brand in front of their customer base.”

6. Brands Can Reward Players for Interacting With Them

Purchasing the Farmers Insurance blimp gave FarmVille players protection, completing quests in the virtual Old Navy store gives CrowdStar players virtual currency, and watching videos or taking surveys on offer walls will earn virtual currency or goods. In some cases, players can choose between paying to play or engaging with a brand in order to play a game for free.

“The player gets the reward by interacting with the brand. This isn’t about showcasing, it’s about engagement,” Wexler explained during his presentation. “And that’s the value to advertisers.”（source:mashable）