Last week a British behavioral consultancy research firm by the name of Bunnyfoot reported on the state of in-game ads and revealed its new Sponsor Fixation Index, which uses eye tracking and physiological data to measure in-game ad efficiency.
If you've played a game in a modern setting (or a hyper modern setting) you've probably noticed a lot of in game ads. They're on billboards plastered on virtual street corners, branded vending machines and licensed cars. But with all these ads, have you connected to any of the ads in a personal, emotional way?
It's an important question, though, for those interested in going forward with in-game ads. Game publishers want to make sure their games aren't being negatively impacted by in-game ads and advertisers want to make sure that their potential customers are having a positive impression of their brand.
We talked with Alison Walton, Head of Visual Engagement of Bunnyfoot's Behavioral research department, about making the most of in-game ads.
Emotional engagement with in-game ads
The service Bunnyfoot is offering—qualitative assessments of in-game ads—isn't one that's really been explored a great deal heretofore. But as the business of ads in games expands, auxiliary industries will undoubtedly appear on the periphery. With increasing budgets for in-game ads, marketers and publishers will no doubt want to try and enhance the effectiveness of their ads even more by using services like Bunnyfoot.
"As it currently exists, [in-game ads] are not creating the right consumer impact," said Walton. "They're recreating real life, which is fine, but it's not engaging people with the brands. There's no emotional or behavioral response with the game. Instead of replicating what's in real life, it should be connecting with people on a whole new level."
"We measure a number of responses, like heart rate, breath rate and face tension and muscle tension. We also look at eye tracking, trying to find signature eye patterns. From that, we can understand whether someone is engaging with something. It's the way of combining the data we have to understand what people react to," she continued. "An example would be, a racing game, if a person is going around a bend and crashing there, and if they're always stuck there, there might be a big hoarding there for an ad on that corner. They might recall that brand, but they're associating that negative emotion they're experiencing with that brand. Ultimately, we can help optimize brand effectiveness within a game."
What's a Bunnyfoot do?
What Bunnyfoot specializes in has implications for gaming that reach far beyond in-game ads. Being able to analyze the way a person reacts to a visual is thoroughly useful for gameplay as well. Their technology works as sort of a "super focus group" allowing them to collect feedback on not only what the person mentions afterwards, but also how they react during the game.
"We have two strings: the in-game ads and game design," explained Walton. "Rather than using metrics, we look at how we can understand gameplay. We take the first few minutes of the game and looks at what makes it exciting. This technique can also be used for adapting a current-gen title to the next-gen. If you have a hit title and are looking to have a sequel, we can help analyze what you should carry over. We use the psychology to study what's the good bits and the bad bits. It's basically about understanding the emotional elements of a gamer."
"We don't sit there with a clipboard and ask about the experience," she added. "It's more passive; we let the gamer play the game. The eye tracking is very non-invasive. Afterwards, when they're done, we can play them back their eye tracking. It allows us to ask what specifically happened. The gamer is much more relaxed, and the eye tracking adds new analysis and gets a more natural reaction. We also do questionnaires afterwards and we can show incremental changes, but the main level of focus is looking at the main level of participation.
"I'm very excited about the future of the in-game ads industry. I think it's only going to get better. There are so many opportunities for it to grow. We have to be careful, because we're still a young industry, and [we shouldn't] just grasp for money and upset the gamers. We should understand how to optimize the gamer's experience. It's about working with the consumers, and taking their lead, rather than copying from other industries."
For good luck?
GameDaily BIZ's chat with Walton also delved into the breadth of Bunnyfoot's reach. The British company works with TV studios on both sides of the pond (Atlantic, if you'd rather). They also deal with billboards, magazine and print ads. NDAs being what they are, Walton couldn't talk about the particular in-game advertising specialists she was working with currently, but she did confirm that they had a large global clientele.
"We work with clients to reorganize ad campaigns," described Walton. "We're trying to show specific examples. We designed this research to show incremental changes. We can show those changes and show clients behavior and show how we can change the game environment and decrease frustration. We can provide insightful data.
"[What we're doing is] groundbreaking research. It's great because it can be applied to different types of media. Traditional testing methods have their place, but the growing of the industry means they need to move forward."
Finally, we couldn't resist asking about the name of the company: Bunnyfoot. While Walton was reluctant to share the whole story, she did say, "We were formed in the dot com era, when it was all about the name and we were looking for something unique."
Unique certainly fits the bill, er foot... oh never mind.