The popularity of video games has continued to grow over the last twenty years.  With new developments occurring almost as fast as we can think them up, it is no wonder that companies are using video games as a serious advertising medium. Product placement is not new; Hollywood has been using it since the beginning of moving pictures.  Video games are no exception, they have been doing it for year, but new emerging technology is making it even more productive giving companies a more targeted plan and better return on their investment.

With more and more people getting online with their gaming consoles, in-game advertising has advance to be more than just a picture that never moves.  Advertisements are now interactive.  I first realized it playing NHL ’09 on my Xbox 360.  I was connected to Xbox live at the time and noticed that there was an advertisement on the hockey rinks boards for the new season of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel.  My player got a penalty and as he entered the penalty box, the game showed a close up the advertisement.  It said the show premiered that night at 9pm.  I checked the TV and sure enough the new season started that night. 

I then started to notice in game advertising constantly changing in video games.  The next night, my NHL game showed a different advertisement.   Forza 3, a racing game, used the billboards around the track as a way to advertise different products.  Tiger Woods golf advertised a sweepstakes to win a new Ford Focus on their main menu.  One great example is the Obama campaign advertising in the game Burnout.

It’s simple to understand why companies are choosing video game advertising.  It gets targeted results.  Companies can focus a product on a game that has a specific demographic.  Forza for example, is a great way to advertise Mobil oil.  More importantly it is a way to directly reach the coveted male 18-34 demographic, which is increasingly becoming more difficult. 

Advertising in video games is not new, but one thing is for sure, it will continue to grow.

Sources:

http://www.vgrc.net/2010/02/advertising-in-video-games-1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-game_advertising

For my Masters Integrated Marketing Communication class, we were asked to blog about ethics in social media.  There have been two instances on Facebook that I have witnessed that are both upsetting and unethical.  Once consisted of a child and one an adult that should have known better.  Both show the character of the poster.

The first instance was this summer, where there was a boating accident on Chautauqua Lake where a man drowned.  The man’s twelve year old daughter had posted a few status updates about how hard it was to lose her father for about a week.  Another child, around the same age, and a Facebook “friend” posted that he was tired of hearing her talk about her dead father since it had been a week and she should move on.

Anyone reading this blog is clearly going to ask, how anyone could be that heartless as to post such a devastating comment.  This is the problem with social media, it is simply too easy for someone to say something without thinking.  As mentioned above, I have to give this young child the benefit of doubt, but he should have known better.  He may not understand ethics at twelve, but he should know right from wrong. 

Social media is starting to alienate people from direct contact with others emotions.  Had that twelve year old seen a crying girl talking about her father, he would have shown (or I like to think he would have) compassion and not make such an awful remark.  There is a whole generation of children and young adults that are not properly learning empathy of others, due to social media and texting.  This type of example will only grow in the future.

My second instance is even more unethical and upsetting and for this one there is no excuse due to age or knowledge (well obviously there is some lack of knowledge).  A few weeks ago on the verge of the holiday season a women, of whom I went to high school with, but did not personally know, took her life in a public setting in downtown Jamestown. 

A passerby, of whom I can only image is a detriment to society, decided to take a picture of the aftermath and post it on Facebook.   Immediately, my newsfeed started to fill up with friends of the deceased commenting on how could this guy do that to the family and what was he thinking.  I read indirectly that that some of her family and friends contacted the guy who posted the picture and he commented back and I paraphrase, “that obviously, she did this in a public place wanting attention and that he had every right to post it, because he was the victim that had to witness it.” 

This is where social media has taken us.  The news is reported directly to us, faster than any newspaper, television station or even website can post.  This, of course, means that amateurs are reporting news and don’t have to follow any ethical guideline.  They should, however use common sense.  This was an adult that posted this picture; he should have enough common sense to realize that this is wrong on so many levels.  Where was his compassion and empathy for the deceased and the deceased family and friends?  He may have though it was “cool” to view a dead body, but why anyone else would want to see that and why would he think it was right to post.  Forget about ethics he, in my opinion, is just a lowlife creep. 

This is the problem with ethics in social media.  How do you police instances like this from happening again and again?  Unfortunately, we will continue to have to find out the hard way.  As a final note, I would like to apologize to the friends and family of the deceased for any incorrect information I may have posted.  I am paraphrasing the best I can, and acknowledge that I am not reporting complete facts.   

No one can deny that social media has transformed the way we live and do business.  Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics describes the ways that this has happened both for the good and bad.  Three ways that I feel social media has changed the world is through status updates, online television and personal role behaviors.

Status Updates

Qualman says “who cares what you are doing,” but on social media sites, such as Facebook, status updates have become common with friends sharing their most enjoyable, intimate and even disappointing moments.  How many times have you heard someone say that they don’t care if someone is brushing their teeth or on their way to the dentist?  Qualman feels that people who ask this question don’t understand social media

Read More

A good digital campaign will reach your target market by going viral on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.  The Axe Detailer “Dirty Balls” campaign started ten months ago with a three minute “infomercial” video on how to clean your dirty sports equipment or “balls”.  It featured actress Jamie Presley as a former tennis star and sales person for the Axe Detailer and another actress who plays the host of the show.

Axe is marketing to men, 18-35 years of age and this commercial hits that target market perfectly.   Both women in the commercial are beautiful and the video is based on the innuendo of “dirty balls” as dirty sports equipment.  Yes, it is inappropriate and mildly offensive, but that is the point.  It’s simple: 18-35 year old men like funny, inappropriate sex innuendos with beautiful women.  This has sold in the past and it sells now.  Take a look at the full commercial.  See if you laugh or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bevJr3Ra84Q

This digital campaign went viral with the full commercial on YouTube, leading viewers to Axe’s main website.  It also had 30 and 15 second commercials that were aired on select television stations.  There are multiple Facebook fan pages and the video has been passed friend to friends for months now.  Thousands of tweets have gone out talking about these commercials.  Every mention on social media sites lead people to want to watch the video on YouTube or the Axe website. The 3 minute video on YouTube has had 4,275,408 hits, the 30 second has 584,162 and the 15 second has 303,459. You can view the 30 and 15 second ads below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IMwuwrkd3s

30 Second

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N52DvGcqBFY

15 Second

So what do you think about this digital campaign?  Do you think that it was successful?  Did you find it funny?  Did it offend you?   Axe has always pushed the envelope of decency to reach its target market.  It had a commercial where a teen boy made out with his girlfriend’s mother because of the smell of his deodorant.  The “Dirty Balls” campaign takes it a step further.  By developing a full 3 minute viral video, it made the target market want to see more.  It also had the target market talking about the commercial and the Axe product.  How many men told their friends to watch the video just for the guy at the end of the video looking at the girl next to him holding the blue dodge balls?  This is how a digital campaign works.  This is how a viral campaign works.

User centered web design is not a new idea to increase internet sales, but it is proven to work.  Seth Godin’s book The Big Red Fez explains how to make any website better and increase traffic and profits.  He likes to associate each successful website as a “monkey in a big red fez.”  The way to motivate a monkey to do what you want is to use a “banana.”  Godin says that “if the banana isn’t easy to see, easy to get and obvious, the monkey is going to lose interest.  But if you make it clear to the monkey what’s in it for him, odds are he’ll do what you what.”         

This is the same for any internet site.  Each page needs a “banana” or clear purpose to help the user know what their next step should be.  Therefore, if you want a user to purchase the item you are selling on a page, the “banana” should be the clearly marked purchase button.  The user should know right away that this is the next step in purchasing that item.

Godin uses multiple examples of how a poor website can be made better.  Here are the examples I feel best support a user centered design and why.

1.       The best way to get what you want

This of course is to make the “banana” the obvious choice on the page.  I recently found this to be anything but true this last election night.  After the polls closed on election night, I, like most people interested in the election, went to the internet to get specific results of individual races.  I wanted to get specific numbers for the local congressional races and knew that Fox News and CNN have had great graphics and statistics for each state on their websites.  I first started with Fox and to my surprise, I couldn’t find any links on the front page for individual state races.  I could find out about the Republicans taking over the House and the fight for the Senate, but I couldn’t find a link for the local Reed-Keller race.  I gave up and went to CNN.   CNN had the same stories on their front page, but again I couldn’t find individual state races.  Unlike what most users would have done, I didn’t give up and started to search the website.   I eventually found what I was looking for, but I went through so many pages and links, that I was afraid to close the page in fear that I would never find it again.  It should be noted that the information CNN had was wonderful.  It gave maps of each state, color coded to show which congressional districts were Democrat and which were Republican.  It also gave detailed election results for every Congressional race.  The question that I kept asking myself was, if they have this great webpage that must have cost a fortune to develop, why aren’t they showcasing it on their homepage on election night?

2.       Don’t make it easy for you, make it easy for me

I hate pull down menus.  I mean I really hate them.  Especially, pull down menus that involve me having to find the United States in alphabetical order.  I mean how many people from Uganda are using the same website I am to the point that they are listed before the good old USA?  Why not put the United States, Canada, United Kingdom at the top of the list and then list Andorra through Zimbabwe.  Or even better, put the US as default and have all the shoppers from Uganda use the pull down. 

I also hate the fact that New York is never on the initial drop down menu and you have to scroll to find it.  This adds two more steps in the process for me when I could have just typed the letters NY.

3.       You can’t test everything

Nothing is more frustrating then when you’re on a page that times you out or you have to continuously log back in.  Although it is not a consumer site, the best example of this frustration is the my.sbu, mybudget page.  This St. Bonaventure University internal page allows departments the ability to view their budgets down to specific object codes.  However, if you so much as want to view a few different codes in a row, it logs you out because the maximum amount of cookie values has been reached.   St. Bonaventure has a good size IT department and spends a lot of money on programs such as mybudget.  Why on earth can’t you do all the work you need before it logs you out.  I mean is the Taliban making so many transactions by viewing my department’s budget that for security reasons they can’t give me unlimited cookie values?

4.       Hi, can I help you

I recently bought a new flat screen television from Radio Shack for a reduced price, because it was the floor model.  The problem was it didn’t come with a factory remote.  So I needed a replacement remote control for my television.  Have you ever tried to purchase one of these?  It’s nearly impossible.  First I went directly to the Samsung webpage.  It sounded like the logical place to go.  There must be thousands of people who lose their remotes and need replacement.  Well apparently at Samsung, if you lose your remote, you have to purchase a new television, or a LCD projector or a blu-ray player.  I typed replacement remote, which I thought would be a common search and this is what I got:

Do you see any remotes on this page?  Well scroll down and you won’t see any either.  They didn’t even acknowledge that my search turned up nothing.  They simple said there were 2,779 results for replacement remotes.  If there are any remotes on this site, I’m not going to scroll through hundreds of pages to find it. 

5.       The web is not a catalog

Since I could not find a replacement remote at Samsung directly, I turned to Google for help.  I searched and found the site, replacementremotes.com.  Sounds good, right?  Well the site sort of looks unprofessional and  my original thought was, is this a legit website?  Anyway, I persevered and did a search for Samsung and the model number (I can’t remember the actual model number, but I digress).  Low and behold, I got nothing.  So I entered only Samsung and this is what I got:

This is the bottom of the page and look, first it is listed by model number (why didn’t the search work) and second, there are five pages listed and then a button for the next 20.  The next 20 pages!  I stopped there defeated and decided to buy a universal remote from Wal-Mart.  The good news was, before I did this, Radio Shack called and had found the remote.  

6.       Let them look all they want

I believe the examples I’m going to give have changed, but a few years ago if you tried to watch a video on a news site like Fox News or a television show on a network site like ABC, you had to log in.  This means I had to give my email address, choose a login name and then a password in order to watch a news clip or an episode of Lost.    Why did I have to do this?  Was I added to some list or did they sell my information?  These are the reasons why you don’t ask for login for simple things such as video.  And furthermore, I could never remember that I had created a login, so when I wanted to watch something again, I had to create another profile.  With the increase of video online, this has changed and changed for the better.

7.       Please get out of my way

In this section of Seth Godin’s book, he praises Yahoo for having a fast loading page with a direct “banana” to check your email.  Email, of course, was one of the main purposes of Yahoo ten years ago, when the book was written.   If The Big Red Fez was written today, I think Godin would think differently of Yahoo’s main page and their email “banana.”  To start, Yahoo is more about searching and news than it is about email.  Their front page is cluttered with many “bananas” other than email. 

However, I still use Yahoo for my personal email, but here is my gripe about it.  You go to the main page, sign in, and then press mail.  Seems straight forward, just like Godin says in his book, but it isn’t.   It should go directly to your inbox, but does it?  Nope.  It goes to this page:

So then you have to press the button for your inbox or the check mail button.  That’s two steps to check your mailbox, when it should only be one.   This absolutely drives me crazy and Godin would agree with me.

8.       Spam is the eye of the beholder

As much as I hate drop down menus, I hate spam even more.  I don’t click on advertisements because I remember the time that if you click on anything other than a link, you got a thousand pop-ups.  I also don’t usually sign up for any sweepstakes, offers or promotions, because I fear that if I do my inbox will be bombarded with spam.  Well, against my better judgment I signed up for the free coupons offered at US post office online, when I was changing my address online.  Why should I fear it, they were all legitimate companies and maybe there would be some good offers.  Well, I should have followed my gut.  My inbox immediately got numerous emails from these companies.  Why does overstock.com send me 10 emails a day?  Is there anyone out there that wants 10 emails from anyone?  I checked one box saying I would like a coupon and all of a sudden I’m getting notifications for lingerie and makeup sales.  I spent the better part of a week, continuously checking my email and unsubscribing to corporate emails.  It’s a horrible way to do business.

9.       Membership has its privileges

I am a member of the American Leman Series (a sports car racing site) website or at least I thought I was.  I joined in 2005 to read the forums and again in 2006 when they updated their forums and yet again when they updated their forums in 2008.  I said at least I thought I was, because now when I go to the webpage, and sign in, there is no record of me.  Even better, they no longer have forums.  How hard is it to update your site and retain the information people have already gotten you?  Well now when I go to the site, I don’t have the option to visit the forums, but I do like to look at the pictures, however, you have to sign up to view the pictures.  Why?  If someone new wants to see a product in action, why do they have to register?  I wonder how many people do that?  None, that’s how many.  If you have a product and loyal visitors, you want to make it easier for them to visit, not harder.

10.   Every once in a while it’s okay to use a pop-up

Again, I disagree with Godin.  Ten years ago, you couldn’t control pop-up, but now you can.  Internet Explorer has a pop-up blocker that stops these pesky annoyances.  So when a site wants to use a pop-up, IE sends you a warning notice your screen, you have to click on it and allow it to temporary allow pop-ups.  Then the page has to reload as well as the pop-up.  Technology has gotten the better of Godin’s theory and websites should avoid pop-ups and just load another page.