Emotion Blur: Can Videogame Ads Level Up?

For many gamers, there are dates circled in their calendars every year as they anticipate the new releases of their favourite franchises. Early November for the latest Call of Duty, last Friday in September for the new FIFA. Then there are other releases that fans may have dreamed of for years, like Super Smash Brothers Ultimate – which in December enjoyed the biggest launch month in US videogame history.

Ads and teasers would seem to have a massive part to play in turning this longing into sales. But with YouTube, Twitch and newer channels so dominated by video games, does the humble TV ad still have a role to play at building reach and driving potential long-term brand growth for publishers?

Games companies seem to think so. Nintendo, EA, Activision Blizzard, and many other publishers spend a lot of money on TV advertising in the US and the UK. Whether the investment is paying off is another matter.

System1 Ad Ratings tracks and tests every TV ad that airs in over 100 verticals – video games included. The measure it uses to predict long-term growth potential for ads is based on emotional response and produces a Star Rating from 1- to 5. The rating predicts how much the inherent quality of an ad will amplify its media investment and drive growth. Given identical investment, where a 5-Star ad might drive 3% growth, a 1-Star ad will produce 0%.

 

And most video game ads are 1-Star, according to Ad Ratings analysis. In the UK, 52% of video game ads earned a 1-Star score, with only 1% generating 4 stars and no 2018 video advertising reaching the 5-star mark.

For an industry that is currently valued at $137bn, are publishers and developers missing out on even more potential long-term brand growth?

The star ratings suggest they might be. A lot of TV ad investment by videogame publishers is wasted. But the path to improvement isn’t all that simple.

In System1’s analysis we saw two distinct approaches to video game advertising: either publishers show the game, or they show people playing it.

The first approach – the “cinematic trailer” – is designed to show off gameplay. Gone are the days where a tiny “not in-game footage” message appeared to warn the viewer of the difference between a slick trailer and the game’s blocky reality. What you see in modern ads for Tomb Raider, Red Dead Redemption, Call Of Duty and others really is what you get. The aim is to show off the graphics and action, create a sense of excitement and let viewers get a sense of the game’s world.

The second approach cuts between gameplay and friends or family having a great time playing together. Here the idea is to create a sense of what a video game does – entertain and bring joy – as well as what it is. The only publisher to do this consistently is Nintendo, which has a long tradition of party gaming and whose Switch console lends itself to same-room play. Ads for Mario Tennis, Mario Party, Pokemon and others focus on the players as much as Nintendo’s roster of on-screen icons.

Which approach works best on TV? Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s Mario who best makes the jump to a new platform. Nintendo’s ads score on average considerably higher than any other publisher, whether you look at the UK or the US. Showing the players as well as the gameplay drives greater emotional response from TV’s broader and more casual audience.

The most recent figures show the wisdom in Nintendo’s approach. The Switch console surged in sales during the holiday season, particularly in the US, where it finished as 2018’s best-selling console. When casual and gift-giving buyers entered the market, it was the Switch they turned to, in droves.

The “cinematic trailer” approach, on the other hand, is far flatter emotionally. To a casual audience, not used to the nuances of a franchise and its gameplay, the trailer-style ads are often a chaotic mish-mash of disconnected violence and noise. The more they suggest a story context, the better they do – a Tomb Raider ad which cut between Lara jumping, shooting and running scored a lot worse than a slightly longer one which put those same scenes in some kind of narrative order.

But video game publishers might be forgiven for asking – does this actually matter? After all, in both the US and the UK, Red Dead Redemption – which boasted a very cinematic trailer style TV ad – topped the sales charts. FIFA sales may be wavering, but the big action and sport franchises clearly aren’t going anywhere. Assassins Creed, Battlefield and others pump out trailer style ads and consistently top the charts.

The pertinent question however isn’t – are video games selling well? But – are they reaching as widely as they potentially could? Broad reach, mass audience advertising – which TV ads are – is about reaching a casual or disengaged audience. Gameplay videos and trailers do a brilliant job of exciting engaged fans and driving massive sales, but the same tactics on TV are emotional non-starters.

Video game advertising is at a crossroads. Big game publishers clearly believe in TV, but if their Star Ratings are any guide, they aren’t getting much out of it. They might see better marginal returns from it if they varied their tactics, loosened their targeting, and didn’t assume that the footage which thrills a fan on YouTube will galvanise a wider audience.

That doesn’t mean taking the “family gameplay” route – though you might see smaller publishers, who want to grow a brand quickly, going down that road. But what works for Nintendo wouldn’t and shouldn’t work for every brand. Instead the path to TV success might mean rediscovering some of the joy of gaming – the humour, excitement, competition and narrative power of games which you can’t get from cinematic footage alone, however great the graphics are.