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Left to right: NBCUniversal’s Krishan Bhatia, Ashley Schapiro of American Eagle and Anzu’s Itamar Benedy. Image: IAB.
Brands are tip-toeing into immersive VR experiences, also known as the metaverse, through the gaming world. There are a wide range of options for brands to connect with the otherwise elusive gaming audience.
This led the discussion at IAB’s first-ever PlayFronts, an event dedicated to advertising and partnership opportunities in the gaming industry. The New York event showed marketers a crash course about the metaverse and how games are part of that. The road to games has been widened by powerhouse gaming publishers like Activision Blizzard (acquired by Microsoft in a jaw-dropping deal), media publishers like NBCUniversal and the adtech leaders who are connecting the pipes to playable ads and virtual metaverse activations.
“They say COVID was an acceleration for gaming, I believe this event will be an acceleration for gaming as an advertising medium,” said Itamar Benedy, co-founder and CEO of programmatic in-game advertising platform Anzu. “People who told me three years ago that I have a cool startup, but those geeks locked in their basement aren’t their audience – they’re at this conference, so I guess there’s a change in perception on that.”
Games and gamers are already using decentralized virtual environments And they are a core audience for brands looking for newer, younger customers they can’t find through other channels.
Untapped audiences identify as gamers
“It’s difficult to reach the gaming audience because they aren’t watching linear TV
Read more here: https://martech.org/how-the-gaming-universe-is-preparing-marketers-for-the-metaverse/