By Stephen Upstone, CEO & Founder, LoopMe
Gaining consumer attention is a must for any brand, but in a more and more fragmented media world, the industry must seek fresh approaches to break through all the noise and clutter.
Whether scrolling through social media or browsing a website, the nature of advertising is interruptive. This can be an annoyance for some users, and when done poorly it can be bad for business, with over 90% of buyers saying they won’t buy from brands using intrusive ads. However, there is a better way that many brands are overlooking – mobile gaming apps.
Go where your audience is
One reason many brand advertisers dismiss this channel is because of outdated perceptions. The traditional image of mobile gamers as young males just filling in time is a myth. Today, gaming isn’t a niche activity. 61% of UK adults engage with mobile games as part of their daily habit. Far from being restricted to one demographic, it now represents a broad swathe of society, encompassing a diverse range of age groups and interests, offering a wealth of brand performance opportunities.
Indeed, for reach, mobile gaming holds its own against those social media giants that brands naturally turn to for scale. With eMarketer predicting there are 27.9 million monthly mobile game users in the UK, this comes in favourably against Instagram’s 28.6 million while comfortably surpassing TikTok’s 20.8 million. And yet advertisers continue to spend over eight times more on social media than mobile gaming apps, despite social media’s issues around cost, measurement, and declining effectiveness.
While delivering equivalent reach and audience of the more heavily invested channels, when it comes to advertising, what sets mobile apps apart is the mindsets of their users.
Relaxed and receptive
Game playing requires focus, so users give their full attention to a single screen rather than spreading it across multiple ones, as tends to happen when they’re using social media. This translates into people who are more attentive to what’s on screen, including advertising.
And the advertising formats they’re exposed to can be much more interactive, immersive, and creative, delivering a better, more friendly experience and deeper engagement. It also means these ads are hard to ignore.
Far from being passive, advertising in these environments delivers a more receptive and relaxed audience. In fact we found that, compared to the mobile web, people are over three times more receptive to ads in mobile app environments. Even when up against video environments, mobile delivers, with users being 50% more receptive to an ad than on YouTube. And with attention being a key metric today, if brands are serious about achieving this, advertisers need to be investing in this high-impact channel.
Delivering action and awareness
But it’s not just about attention. A recent LoopMe study found that people are nearly twice as likely to act after seeing an ad on a mobile app than if they saw it on television. But don’t be misled into thinking mobile app advertising is just a performance play – another myth that might make brands reluctant to invest in it.
Far from it. The connection, sustained engagement and attention that the less cluttered app environments offer, coupled with the audience’s receptiveness, make them prime for building awareness and supporting a brand’s long-term aspirations. And with mobile gaming providing the opportunity to reach incremental audiences that might not be active in other environments, it’s very much a brand play as well. Perhaps, ultimately, it’s a true brandformance channel.
What is clear is that facing declining data signals, booming Made for Advertising sites, fragmenting channels, and an open web viewed with suspicion, mobile gaming apps offer brands everything they want.
Yes, currently, there’s a huge investment disconnect, with users spending twice as much time on mobile games than the channel’s share of advertising budgets. But it’s this untapped potential and the fact competitors may not be there just yet makes it the perfect time for brands to invest. Doing so allows advertisers to take full advantage of a medium that cuts through the clutter and delivers them new levels of engagement, attention, reach and impact, – so they stand out from the crowd.
