At Fortune Promoseven, we are discovering new ways of reaching target audiences for our clients' brands every day. Over the last couple of years, our digital solutions have included a new and interesting area called advergaming.

Advergaming (advertising+gaming) is the practice of using video games to advertise a brand product or message.With the growth of the internet, advergames have proliferated, often becoming the most visited aspect of brand websites and becoming an integrated part of brand media planning in an increasingly fractured media environment. Advergames theoretically promote repeated traffic to websites and reinforce brands.

Users choosing to register to be eligible for prizes can help marketers collect customer data. Sometimes, even when an end benefit like a prize is not involved, the interest in the game if it is quality enough, generates traffic and viral interest. Meaning, gamers may also invite their friends to participate, which could assist promotion by word of mouth, or "viral marketing."

A brand may typically provide interactive games on its website in the hope that potential customers will be drawn to the game and spend more time on the website, or simply become more product aware. On some occasoins, brands develop games that feature their products in some way and place the games on gaming environments, rather than on their own corporate or product website. The games themselves usually feature the company's products prominently (often as "powerups" or upgrades). These games may consist of reworked arcade classics or original programming, and they are usually designed for Adobe Flash or similar multimedia software.

Another advergame technique consists of advertising within a game itself. Since the intent of in-game advertising is typically commercial rather than political, some consider such advertisements to make up a category of their own. In-game advertising is similar to subtle advertising in films, where the advertising content is within the "world" of the movie. Thus billboards, fliers, sponsored product placement, and the interplay between the player and these elements in the game allow for a great degree of virtual advertisement. This what we call placement.

A very interesting and promising promotional opportunity is the product placement in online multiplayer games - the deep integration of advertised products, services and brands into the actual gameplay. Most suitable for this type of promotion are two types of games - virtual worlds (eg, Second Life) and universal business simulations.

For example, the emergence of a virtual bank with a real brand in the virtual world provides additional opportunities for transactions with the virtual currency. The principal advantage of this type of in-game advertising is that such advertising to 100% of the audience is loyal, and almost all the players repeatedly and actively engaged in the virtual world with integrated gameplay brands. Especially these benefits manifest themselves in business simulations, because it is goods, services and brands are the basis of gameplay in them and the main objects of game action.

Some content is courtesy of wikipedia