In-game advertising platform Anzu, together with global attention tech company Lumen Research, has unveiled its latest findings in the Are You Paying Attention report, following on from a two-year study.
The largest of its kind to date, this study looked at the impact of attention on digital advertising, particularly intrinsic-in-game ads. The purpose was to find whether ads leave lasting impressions on gamers, how attention relates to purchase intent, and more.
The right place for ads
To gather data for the study, information was collated from eye tracking technologies, 25 other Anzu studies, 90 in-game ad attention studies, forced exposure tests and more.
Lumen’s dataset suggests that across 42 observed digital advert formats from YouTube ads to Facebook feeds, the average viewability score came out at 78 percent, but in many cases this was below 50 percent. Anzu’s in-game advertising, meanwhile, had a 98 percent viewability score.
In fact, ads in games overall proved to have higher viewability scores – not just with Anzu. Compared to the average 78 percent across all formats studied, this rose to 85 percent among gamers. And in addition to the increased viewability of ads in games, the time spent watching them is marginally greater also: the industry average is 2.9 seconds per ad, versus 3.1 seconds in games.
However, it should be noted that the number of seconds gamers are actively attentive to these ads is fractionally lower than in other formats. Despite this, mobile ads were found to outperform desktop ads overall, with gamers also being more likely to purchase from a brand they see through an in-game ad.
"With the average global ad blocking rate now estimated at 37 percent, 52 percent of all consumers not paying attention when ads come on the TV, and 65 percent of people skipping video ads at the first chance they get, unsurprisingly, advertisers are beginning to question the quality and value of ad delivery and media impressions," said Anzu co-founder and CEO Itamar Benedy.
"In contrast, gaming is a highly impactful channel, driving huge levels of attention which we previously have not seen within the digital ad space."
The full report reveals further details on ad viewership across devices, formats and more.
After implementing Anzu’s in-game ads within Cooking Fever, Nordcurrent saw its average revenue per daily active user increase by three times in the US.
