A Mad World: video games & the power of time & attention

It’s a mad, mad world. The headlines keep coming, with the “IAB Warns of Measurement Blackout” at the forefront. IAB US's State of Data report, launched in February 2022, states that the report is raising alarm bells, indicating that advertisers are on the brink of losing their ability to measure advertising campaigns with no industry consensus about what to do next.

Warnings about the dawn of measurement disruption have ensued for months. Some of these include:

• “DoubleVerify Finds CTV Ads Running with TV Set Turned Off,” according to Nexttv in February 2022
• Per AdAge, in February 2022, “Repeating ads wastes billions and annoys viewers, study confirms”
• “The death of third-party cookies will reshape digital advertising” Quartz, April 2021
• “Nielsen’s National TV Service Is No Longer Accredited. What Happens Now?.” September 2021, AdWeek

Advertisers can easily navigate through the madness by connecting with gamers via Frameplay’s intrinsic in-game advertising network that allows brands to advertise within highly cinematic interactive video games in the moments when gamers are actively playing their games. While gamers are focused on their game play, they are also giving attention to the content that is within their game experience because that content is part of their game play experience. This type of attention, where content is intentionally weaved in to be part of the game play experience without disrupting the gamer, is essential to brands. Frameplay is serious about leading the industry and proving how valuable gamers’ focus on the content in the game is to a brand.

To further lead the industry on intrinsic in-game viewability and attention measurement, Frameplay is proud to announce our first-to-market attention metric called Intrinsic Time-in-View. Frameplay’s metric is built upon our industry-leading viewability capability and has been analysed and validated by two first-to-market, independent studies led by Lumen and eye square.

Intrinsic Time-in-View* measures the length of time an ad impression is viewable during game play. An impression is only considered viewable if it meets our intrinsic in-game advertising proprietary and market-leading viewability requirements. This is a complex pixel analysis within the game that accesses the ad ratio, skew, obstruction, etc. from the visual perspective of the game player. When the ad is considered viewable is when the time clock for our Intrinsic Time-in-View starts and it pauses or ends when the ad is considered no longer viewable. In addition to evaluating our metric in the context of how long the ad is in view during game play, we also analyse the total amount of time the ads are in view during the entirety of the campaign and the average amount of time each ad and campaign is in view per player session.

We at Frameplay, joining forces with dentsu International, executed research with Lumen where participants were exposed to a game play session. The goal of this research was to provide dentsu and the overall industry with an attention metric to be used in their planning tools for intrinsic in-game opportunities.

Further, we have partnered with both Lumen and, independently, eye square, to analyse and compare Frameplay’s Intrinsic Time-in-View calculation with their respective eye tracking measurement. Both companies, using unique and differing methodologies and technologies, validated with confidence that the Intrinsic Time-in-View measurement is a viable measure of attention.  

Validation of Frameplay’s Intrinsic Time-in-View metric during the studies was accomplished with both companies by taking the Intrinsic Time-in-View calculation for the game play sessions that were part of the eye-tracking study and our time-in-view metric, which was applied to the viewable impressions to calculate the Intrinsic Time-in-View for each ad that was served during those sessions. Our eye tracking partners then compared their version of time-in-view for each ad and each session based on their eye tracking attention metric methodology.  

Lumen concluded the following take-aways:

• Lumen’s average viewable time metric was consistent with Frameplay’s Intrinsic Time-in-View metric for calculating viewable time
• The advertisement analysed successfully captured 1.4x more attention of the gamers vs the norm, performing significantly higher than Lumen’s comparative norm of mobile display
• Overall attention, produced by Frameplay’s Intrinsic In-Game campaign analysed by Lumen, outweighed the mobile display norm
• Lumen’s composite metric of attentive seconds per ‘000 impressions was used to assess inventory quality across media formats and channels including Frameplay’s In-Game Intrinsic advertising. The results indicated that the intrinsic in-game advertising performed similarly to social in-feed video norms and outperformed every other social, web, and mobile format, including social in-feed image

“Lumen conducted an eye-tracking test to assess how much attention goes to Frameplay's in-game ad formats, and how this compares to standard digital ad formats. The research shows the power of in-game advertising that works to support the user's experience rather than interrupting their game play,” said Mike Follett, Managing Director of Lumen.

eye square concluded the following take-aways:

• Critically testing Intrinsic Time-in-View turned out to be very close to the true real-life value provided by eye square’s eye tracking measurement
• Intrinsic banner ads in mobile games are highly appreciated, while in contrast, interrupting video ads are not liked at all
• Real world inspired branding and sponsorships will improve gameplay experience and subjective life-world authenticity
• eye square sees great potential in Frameplay’s innovative ad framework technology to satisfy the changing commercial and cultural needs of advertisers, companies and gamers

"Considering the socio-technical complexity of online ad delivery and viewability measurement on mobile devices and having over 20 years of experience in evaluating ad delivery, effectiveness and perception, eye square considers the performance of the time in view algorithm to be accurate and very close to the true real-life value," said Dr. Jan-Michael Kühn from eye square GmbH Berlin, Senior Gaming Experience Expert, Tribe Lead Video Games UX.

When brands advertise with us at Frameplay, their brand is embedded intrinsically inside the game while the player is actively playing the game. This extremely unique brand placement allows the ultimate brand attention.

“The average consumer sees over 4,000 ads in any given day, so it is imperative that advertisers start evaluating channels through the lens of attention metrics, which are more indicative of meaningful exposures,” said Joanne Leong, Vice President, Global Media Partnerships at dentsu. “The results from these studies validate proven attention in Frameplay’s gaming inventory, and we will use this data in planning as we evaluate future intrinsic in-game opportunities.”

For brands interested in intrinsic in-game advertising, consider the following:

• Instead of people simply watching stories via video, in video games people play the stories
• Instead of making the story (your commercial) about your brand, you make your brand story part of the game
• Instead of disrupting the 30 minutes of video content with your commercial, your brand is part of the gaming content.
• Instead of guessing if people will see your commercial, Frameplay’s intrinsic in-game ads are only billed when they are viewed
• What do you get in return? Proven attention to your brand that matters

Intrinsic Time-in-View offers brands the opportunity to not only ensure their ads are viewable, but that they have enough time to resonate for consumers to make purchasing decisions. 

For more information, contact Scott Linzer, SVP of Business Development at [email protected]
 

*Time-in-View is a viewability duration metric specifically for the intrinsic in-game space.