In-Game Advertising

What it is

The format sits beside product placement in film and television, and differs from it in one way that matters to researchers: the player is acting, not watching. Attention is divided between the brand and the task, so a placement can be on screen for a long time and still go unreported.

The field also separates it from the advergame, a game built around a brand. The two are often pooled in popular accounts, but the best-pooled evidence covers advergames only.

In effect

On memory, Moonhee Yang and colleagues placed brand names in two sports computer games in 2006 and found that college students recognised few of them, yet a word-fragment test showed memory for the names. On attitude, Moritz Ingendahl and colleagues found in 2023 that the overall effect of placements is small and inconsistent, and that in their two experiments only brands met during positive in-game experiences gained.

A brand can therefore fail a recognition test, leave a trace on an implicit test, and help or not help its attitude depending on how the player was doing when it appeared.

What it does not say

It does not say placements in games are ineffective. It says the effect depends on the outcome measured and on the play experience around the placement.

It does not say the evidence reaches sales. The studies read for this page measure memory and attitude, and the advergame meta-analysis reports choice behaviour for a different format.

A sentence in Martin Lindstrom's Buyology reports that a Neuroco study found no in-game billboard drew any attention. No published version of that study was found, and it is not used as evidence here.

---