Session: Viral Marketing through Advergames

Session Leader: Jameson Hsu, Mochi Media

Session Participants:

• Jameson Hsu, CEO Mochi Media
• Jeremy Huylebroeck, Orange R&D, San Francisco
• Michael Smith, Orange R&D
• Vincent Roussilhon, Orange R&D
• Pascale Diaine, Orange R&D
• Marie Caroline Lanfranchi, Fabernovel

Slides

MarCamp2006.pdf

Notes from the session

Company

Mochibot: tracking tool for flash

tracks how many people play them, when, how often

the company started doing marketing campaign

Flash games spread virally. not only traditionally but people also copy games.

What is advergaming: using games to advertise

track any kind of content in flash (video...)

some games travel through 1000s web sites.

some people don't notice their are in an advertisement when they play the game.

example: corn nuts.

got 4000 plays yesterday (consistantly each day over a year)

spread to 900 web site (actual copy).

Flash Banners are not considered games (ex: punch the monkey)

But it is still a new area. (ex: of a game on myspace using your avatar)

Online games are played at work during lunch time or after 5pm.

example: Milwaukee's Best light

example: Pepsi

example: CandyStand

everything is advertising for products, but you feel you are on a gaming web site.

Games usually outpace videos

video you play them only once or twice

Question: all those games seem very similar everywhere?

true, there aren't many company creating those games yet.

but there is a huge market, and people are building the games on their own.

example: adrenaline challenge

54M views!

created by a 15year old

it looks bad. it is not always about the graphics

people sends it to their friends to beat their score. (highscores are kept online)

Mistake is to think that games should be professional looking

it is not true, it is hard to predict what is going to popular.

that's where the tracking helps.

Who plays these games?

60% of american play regularly games.

31% over 18 year old prefer games than TV

43% gamers are female

2% buyer intention for traditional campaign

15% for advergaming!!

The basics

the games have to be fun

not flashy or best graphics/sounds

somethign easy to pick up, learn and play

highly recommend to use flash, (98% penetration)

Don't use protection in your game!!

Should be easy to copy the game off the site

multiple sites crawl the web to find games

and only list them

so it is a good web to spread your advergame

how to save:

"save as" page in the browser.

open the folder, the ".swf" file is the game

then track it

with Mochibot

Mochikit creates a little piece of code you just have to copy in your flash.

example: Ultrablock

the tracking allows you to see what site host the file.

then you can eventually build specific relationship with those sites.

Question: if it is only an animation, does it still track it?

yes it tracks it the same way.

Question: does it track if plays from the desktop?

the user has to be connected, but the tracking also works from the desktop.

The tracking can be granular.

You can track any event in the flash, but it needs some additional code.

The default code tracks the player itself.

For pikeo, Mochibot would not be useful as pikeo is not spreading.

But it could be useful for the slideshow player that is embedded in blogs or web sites.

Question: not tracking any complicated games?

no MMO, no RPGs.

Question: which kind of game is prefered? simple or complex?

much more simple games online now (10 new games a day)

not many complex games as they take time to develop

but there is direct port of old games from Amstrad/Atari entirely in flash (example: Rick Dangerous)

Question: Myspace?

every widget on myspace has to be flash. It can't be javascript

People post games in their profile

People embed games in your comments in your friend post.

BunchBall is actually allowing to do multiplayer/collaborative gaming through widgets in the comments of a blog!

To help the spreading, you can embed a "send to friend" form in the game itself

Adding a download link helps also a lot.

Summary

• People love games
• Advergames are both deep and wide in reach
• use flash
• make them easy to steal

Question: How do you make money?

-licensing of datamining server

-consulting

server: 500hits/s average

Question: is there a way to collect demographic?

Mochi media did it in the past, not actively now.

you can do it by collecting surveys in the game.

were getting 20% response rate.

example: between 2 stages, "for an additional 1000 points, tell us..."

but like in most survey, they don't have to responde trustfully

using IP address is not good enough. use of flash cookie.

Question: what evidence shows that candy stand is success and that people actually purchase product?

most of those games are not "click to buy", but more branding.

More big players into gaming.

Viacom purchased Atom Entertainment recently