Monthly Matters is a monthly review of marketing news in the world of entertainment. The November 2006 issue is largely focused on the evolution of in-game advertising.

• Exent Technologies ranked 12th on the 2006 Deloitte Israel Fast 50 ladder as one of Israel’s fastest growing companies. With the European Union recently selecting Exent for the Sixth Framework Program Games@Large initiative, and Portugal Telecom announcing a partnership to launch free-ad supported games with the Sapo.pt Games-on-Demand portal, this powerhouse company shows no signs of weakening.
• Phoenix Marketing International published a study that suggests Coke, Pepsi, Nike, and Adidas are the top advertisers that adult gamers most actively recall from their state of play. Managing the frequency and saliency of advertising are important and difficult tasks, particularly in the entertainment environment. Stepping over the line of memory recall and invading the immersion of players could yield disastrous results. Advertisers, tread lightly. Or not. It’s your money.
• Microsoft has in the meantime opened a somewhat new avenue for reaching consumers. The Xbox Live service now provides Xbox 360 console owners access to television shows and movies. It’s only a matter of time until the rebirth of television advertising, and that’s where the real money will be made. Advertising has traditionally suffered from being a one-way mouthpiece. Through digital content delivery services, advertising has a window of an opportunity to make a comeback as interactive, entertaining, and perhaps even fun media.
• Speaking of interactive advertising, Atrativa Latin America contracted with Eyeblaster to leverage an in-game advertising platform for casual games. Atrativa is the leading casual games distributor in Latin America with partners such as NET, the largest cable television and telecom company in Brazil, and Yahoo! Brasil. Atrativa is offering streaming video ad inventory on twelve best-selling games including Super Collapse 3, Mah Jong Medley, and Sudoku by GameHouse. More Eyeblaster-enabled games are expected to be distributed by Atrativa.
• Intriguing statistics flood into the sea of green every month from market researchers, but the Keller Fay Group published a report that is extremely relevant to the business of branding. According to Keller Fay, 15% of consumers account for one-third of word of mouth exchanged in the United States. These brand champions are involved in 1.5 times more word-of-mouth conversations than average consumers. Women are more likely to engage in word of mouth than men — that’s a no-brainer according to a recent study lending credibility to the notion that women engage in more conversations than men. Women are also more likely to act on word of mouth. But don’t get too excited. It’s still a coin toss.
• The Keller Fay report also identifies baby boomers as relevant to word-of-mouth campaigns; influential people as power listeners and power talkers; and the Internet as a resource for brand champions rather than as a primary channel for communication. Entertainment and media are the popular areas of concern; however, these industries are closely followed by the beverage, public affairs, food and dining, retail, travel, and automotive industries.
• David Edery, fellow blogger and the new Worldwide Games Portfolio Manager for Xbox Live at Microsoft, recently published an article in Harvard Business Review titled Reverse Product Placement in Virtual Worlds. David has talked about this subject before, but he can’t reprint this particular article. You can download the article for a couple bucks from Harvard Business Online, but if you’re a student you can probably get a free copy from your college library.