By Victoria Beyer, Vice President of Digital Turbine’s West Coast Brand Business
Election season is around the corner, and as we saw with 2020’s election, the media landscape will be noisy to say the least. In an already crowded space, the election season introduces several new challenges, particularly for advertisers. Unclear brand associations, amplified audience emotions, and limited control over ad placement alongside politically charged content leaves brands scrambling to adjust strategies. And while some marketers may think pulling back on ad campaigns during this season might be the only feasible avenue, the mobile gaming market is a highly untapped ad space that could be a critical route for sellers to capitalize on this season.
Terms up for advertising on social and streaming platforms
If you’re already feeling exhausted from political content being fed to you on social media and through connected TVs, it turns out you’re not alone. While 16% of social media users were fatigued by political content in 2016, that number more than doubled to 55% during the 2020 election season – and it’ll only continue to increase.
Knowing that people are turning away from their traditional media consumption preferences, marketers are left trying to find new ways to reach their audiences. On the one hand, they might want to increase their spend to maintain reach, but on the other, having more ads in a polarized environment creates risk to brand safety: 82% of US B2C marketing executives indicated that they’re concerned about marketing their brand during the US presidential election cycle.
It can be confusing for consumers to see brands side by side with political content they might not agree with, especially when they’re already experiencing heightened emotions. This leaves advertisers to navigate either reaching fewer consumers, or risking accidentally pushing their target audiences away due to a lack of control over ad placement.
Increasing the max budget
Another challenge the election season presents to marketers is a rise in advertising expenses. Forrester predicts that this year’s election will increase ad costs by 13%, meaning brands will need to spend more to maintain regular reach among consumers. Advertisers will be paying more without the guarantee their ad will even be seen with so much competition for placement and consumer attention.
Higher costs are also sometimes unattainable. In recent economic turbulence, it’s no secret that many companies have had to tighten their belts and decrease budgets. To add to the stress of preparing for overwhelmed and unfocused consumers, as well as mitigating risk to brand reputation, brands will now be faced with the need to increase return on budgets they don’t have. With traditional advertising avenues saturated with politically charged content at much higher costs, it poses the question of whether social media and streaming platforms are even where advertisers want to–or should–be.
Those in favor of switching strategies say, “aye”
Advertising through traditional tactics, in short, is causing headaches. That doesn’t mean brands need to limit ads, but rather consider expanding into the market of mobile gaming. Mobile gaming strategies are too often overlooked, even though they are equally and sometimes more effective: Over 160 million Americans play mobile games and when compared to popular advertising channels, one survey found that 52% of people spend more time in mobile games than they do streaming YouTube Mobile. This rings especially true now, as mobile gaming also includes an element of safety with the content itself –games– is not polarized in any way. This approach can be helpful for brands trying to control where and how they appear in media.
In today’s world, it feels like everyone has access to a mobile device. From tablets to cell phones, people can quickly and easily turn to mobile games when social and streaming media is fatiguing. What’s more is that ad campaigns of leading brands significantly under-delivered to consumers who spend more time playing mobile games than they do on YouTube, a media consumption app with high ad priority. This means the opportunity for advertisers to engage more consumers has been lingering, untapped even prior to election season. Pivoting emphasis to mobile gaming has the opportunity to reach tons of users, and the time to do so is now as mainstream markets are overcrowded, overpriced, and risk brand character.
May the best strategy win
With election season approaching and a polarized market, along with a very crowded and expensive ad space, advertising in mobile gaming has never made more sense. Consumers who are exhausted from traditional media platforms can turn to mobile games, a market that brands often forget and deprioritize in their ad campaigns. When deciding where to allocate limited budgets, marketers can also maintain a high reach with less risk by leveraging mobile gaming. Instead of pulling back ad campaigns and waiting the season out, now more than ever, brands need to leverage mobile games into their ad strategies.
About the Author
Victoria Beyer has well over 23+ years of Adtech experience in mobile, programmatic, data, and complex technology covering Brand and DR strategies. She is a seasoned leader in sales and operations who builds teams that outperform peer sets in growth, efficiency, culture, and loyalty. Victoria has sold as both a market challenger and market leader, adjusting to the range of resources and challenges to gain maximum impact. She brings her experiences from working at the following companies: Conversant, Vivendi Universal Music, IAC Interactive, Millennial Media, and Quantcast.