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Casual Connect 2012: Stop hunting whales and monetise the 99% with brand advertising argues Wild Tangent's Mike Peronto

#casualconnect Hunt broad quality not narrow wallets

Casual Connect 2012: Stop hunting whales and monetise the 99% with brand advertising argues Wild Tangent's Mike Peronto

"The industry is focusing more and more on hunting - or monetising - whales. We need to focus on the 99 percent," said Mike Peronto, CEO of Wild Tangent at Casual Connect Seattle 2012.

The problem, he argued is that advertising has become the red-headed stepchild of the gaming industry.

Meanwhile, the internet and gaming has failed to take any of the massive amount of cash spent on brand advertising, notably on TV.

"Why is that? We've raised transactional advertising to an art form," Peronto said.

"App stores are a goddam awful form of distribution. We're using [CPI] advertising as a patch for inefficient distribution."

Rethinking the advert

"Games are the single most strategic form of media on the internet. We are made for brand advertising," Peronto continued.

"Just in mobile, there's a $20 billion problem that we can solve."

His point is that game developers haven't made their content accessible to big consumer brands, instead getting bogged down in low quality banner ads for companies and services that few consumers know about and even fewer care about.

He went on to give some advice about how to change the situation.

  • Teach developers the difference between brand advertising and direct response (i.e. banner) advertising.
  • Understand that brand campaigns are longer than just one game. They will span several media and run for a number of years.
  • Design brand advertising into your game from the outset.

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Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.