Gaming has moved well beyond its old stereotype, but plenty of media plans still treat it like a side experiment. This Q&A with Adam Peck, Head of Advertiser Sales, UK, at iion, is really about that disconnect between perception and reality. The audience is there, the formats are there, and the outcomes are there, yet the channel is still too often treated as optional.
What is the one thing you wish everyone knew about gaming as a media channel?
It’s that gaming shouldn’t still be boxed off as a test-and-learn innovation channel. It’s already a mainstream media environment, with over three billion people playing video games around the world. The problem is, despite its popularity, ad budgets haven’t caught up – most brands and agencies still only spend 1-2% of their marketing budgets on gaming, and so it’s our job to close that gap.
What’s the biggest misconception advertisers have about gaming?
The first misconception is the audience. A lot of people still picture teenage boys in basements, but the data shows the audience cuts across generations, and the split is roughly 50% male and 50% female.
The second misconception happens because people still judge gaming through old definitions of premium – they see a list of casual and mobile titles and assume those environments must be lower value. In reality, premium is much more subjective than that. Some of the most played games are valuable precisely because they are so accessible and so habit-forming. If you ask a room who considers themselves a gamer, only a couple of hands go up, but if you ask who plays Sudoku or Scrabble, almost everybody’s hand goes up. That gap says a lot.
What are the questions you’re most often asked by advertisers?
Brand safety is usually the first question. After that, it tends to move quickly into audience, targeting and control. The important point is that, outside of forums and user-generated content, gaming can be an extremely safe environment. Once an advertiser is comfortable with a curated list of games, they know they are not going to appear next to unsuitable content.
That process can be quite iterative too. A brand might ask for certain categories to be removed, such as first-person shooters, and then shape the final list from there. From that point, the conversation usually broadens into how specific the targeting can be, which could be by genre, context, third-party data, intent signals, psychographics or deterministic audiences.
For larger international brands, there’s often another question around direct supply, SDK integrations, and global reach.
What is the biggest opportunity for media agencies and advertisers in gaming this year?
For me, the biggest opportunity is still untapped users, incremental reach and guaranteed outcomes. Gaming gives advertisers access to audiences they may not be reaching properly elsewhere, but the opportunity goes beyond adding scale for its own sake. There’s also something useful in the way people use games, especially on mobile, because they dip in and out, pick up where they left off and move through natural pauses in the experience.
For example, research shows that more than 85% of players log in multiple times per day. That stop-start behaviour can make well-placed ad moments feel more natural. It creates a different kind of opening for brands, even if the industry still needs more evidence to quantify that fully.
What’s the best use of gaming you’ve seen in the past three months?
The strongest use we’ve seen recently is when gaming is used to complement an existing AV or display plan, rather than being left to sit on its own as a novelty test. Rewarded video is a strong example because it can add incremental reach among audiences a brand may not be reaching properly on platforms like YouTube, while still delivering performance that feels more in line with social. The value exchange is a big part of that, because the player has actively chosen to watch the ad in return for something useful in the game, whether that’s an extra life, a shield or a way to keep progressing.
Playables are another good example, because you are speaking to someone who is already in an interactive mindset and therefore more open to exploring a message, rather than just glancing at it.
Display deserves a second look too, but for a slightly different reason. In gaming, it shouldn’t be judged against the standard web-display model of a 300 x 250 placement sitting halfway down a page, because it behaves like a much higher-attention format with guaranteed viewability.
What are you most passionate about achieving this year in media?
What I’m most passionate about is helping gaming become an always-on media channel and driving up media spend above the 1-2% mark to actually reflect the amount of time and attention people give it.
I’d like to see the market move beyond the stage where gaming has to keep reintroducing itself, and instead start treating it with the same seriousness as other major channels. That means making it easier for brands to buy direct supply at scale, get global reach where they need it and measure performance against outcomes that matter. Whether that’s VCR, brand lift, attention or broader campaign efficiency.
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iion is the industry’s first full-stack gaming advertising platform, transforming how brands connect with gaming audiences and publishers monetise their gaming environments. Its tagline “Real Attention. Proven Outcomes.” encapsulates their commitment to delivering measurable results through gaming’s unmatched engagement power.
With its proprietary platforms – immersiion (DSP) for brands and fusiion (SSP) for publishers – they solve the fragmentation challenge in gaming advertising. immersiion enables brands and agencies to harness gaming’s attention advantage through an intuitive self-serve interface, while fusiion empowers publishers to maximise inventory value from their unique audiences.
Gaming isn’t the future – it’s now. iion is where brands win and publishers thrive.
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