New distribution channels for advertising through computer games and mobile devices.

Abstract

The development in advertising industry has lately gone from open advertising through few, major distribution channels to a hidden and targeting advertising integrated into everyday life. Advertisers grow increasingly unhappy with the value delivered by the traditional mediums. They turn to alternative distribution channels in order to increase the success rate of advertising campaigns. Channels seen as unattractively with little purchasing power previously are attracting advertisers attention. The goal of this thesis has been to identify future distribution channels for advertising through computer games and mobile devices. In addition to identify, the report aims to look into the market potential of the identified advertising channels as well. This thesis begins with an introduction to advertising. Then advertising in computer games are investigated in the next chapter. The audience and business aspects of this advertising branch are examined and existing distribution channels are presented. Then a case study of advertising in a computer game named Cricket 07 and a virtual world called Second Life are carried out. Based on the thorough case study, several unexploited advertising channels are found and presented. The concepts are described in detail and high-level technical models are presented. The second part of the thesis examines mobile advertising. The same procedure is used here as for advertising in computer games. The main contribution of this part is the proposed solution presented in the end of the chapter. An advertising channel tailor made for Wireless Trondheim is described and a high-level technical model of the proposed distribution channel is given. The main contribution of this thesis is the identification of new distribution channels for advertising through computer games and mobile devices.