Typical behaviour on my part. After just receiving my new phone in the mail, and finding out it had a flash player on it, I whipped off this screensaver, loaded it up through bluetooth, and presto! It’s been saving my screen ever since.

As I do all this, I think Kevin and Gry are discussing the future of UOVO… I’m sure I’m listening intently while I film this.

Totally.

In Part One, we established that AdGames are free online web games that are used as a part of a marketing campaign. But how does it work? Well the last post ended with our motto: “ENTERTAIN, ENLIGHTEN AND ENGAGE!”, and that is exactly what AdGames do.

Games are not necessarily entertaining. Many games have a lousy gameplay. They’re too easy or too hard – or just boring. If the game isn’t fun, it’s not gonna be enlightening or engaging. It’s not gonna work. Of course you don’t want your brand associated with something boring or crappy! So, first priority is always; ENTERTAINMENT.

It takes knowledge and a good idea to make a game fun.
At UOVO, we have both.

If the game is entertaining there’s a good chance that it’s gonna be engaging too. Let’s compare a game to a tv-commercial. People zap away or just don’t pay attention to all commercials. In a good game, the player is engaged and absorbed in your commercial – often for hours.

Ok, so maybe these games are funny and engaging, but “enlightening”? Don’t computergames make you stupid?

No. Stupid tv makes you stupid. Stupid books make you stupid. Stupid GAMES make you stupid.

Neuroscience and theories about learning show that rationality and emotion aren’t two independent entities. On the contrary. If you have fun, you’re more likely to understand something new. Therefore, not only does the positive reaction towards the ad often lead to a positive reaction towards the brand, but you can also use the game to give your potential target group an idea about why your brand is superior.

With a revision of the journalistic rule of thumb; we say, “Play it, don’t say it!”

We get a lot of questions about adgames. In order to explain what we do – and why adgames work, we’re going to write a little series of posts on the subject. This is the first post in that series.

We start out with the obvious:

So what is this “adgames” stuff all about?
The term “Adgame” is used to describe just about everything from:

1. Ingame ads ( eg.: billboards in sports games like FIFA )
2. Console or PC games – made soley to promote a brand, or cause (eg.:Americas Army)
3. Free online web games that are used as a part of a marketing campaign

At UOVO we use adgames to describe the latter. We make small free online games – that are part of a campaign to support a product, brand or cause; like the ones we did for Telmore or Information.

Why would anyone want to have a game as a part of an advertising campaign?
The simple answer is: “Because it works!”. But I’ll try to eloborate. Patterns in media use are changing. In general, papers and magazines are experiencing a decrease in readers, and while the amount of tv-viewers has been fairly constant the last couple of years, viewers are scattered across different channels. As an advertiser you want to follow the crowd. More and more time is spent online. In order to reach people, online advertising is a must.

But why not just a use a banner, or a pop-up?
90% of all users find pop-ups annoying. This attitude towards the ad could reflect on the advertised brand or product. So; don’t go there! Besides that; any decent browser has a pop-up blocker that can be easily activated by the user. A banner can work if you want to get some attention, but a game does something else. Games ENTERTAIN, ENLIGHTEN AND ENGAGE!

-More on that in the next post.