MRS Conference: Nerd-Free Zone?

In the afternoon, Nick Southgate from ad agency Grey London introduced a session on 'Research and Advertising Media in the 21st Century', including papers on the impact of in-game advertising, and a comparison of consumer engagement for ads on sites such as YouTube and those on TV.

Firstly, James Myring and Max Willey of Continental Research described the recent growing popularity of online gaming, and the effectiveness of dynamic advertising embedded within the games.

Contrary to the stereotype of gamers being 'nerdy', the new generation are likely to be in work, are competitive by nature, sociable and interested in consumer goods. They are also very open to seeing appropriate advertising within games and have a very high level of specific ad recall.

In a profiling study of Xbox 360 online games in the UK, Continental noted a positive impact on the brand from association with the new medium - particularly when ads were designed to be relevant to their in-game surroundings.

When it comes to evaluating how online advertising works, Ian Wright from OTX Europe and Sarah Everitt from Google adopted an approach to measuring both the rational and emotional response to the medium.

Using a combination of techniques such as biometrics, eye tracking, depths and online quant surveying to test ads on YouTube vs on TV, results showed that consumers are more attentive online, which impacts on how they engage with an ad. Above all else, the study showed that click-through is not an essential measure to demonstrate that an online ad contributes strongly to a campaign.
MRS Conference reviews in full:

TV Scientist Kicks off MRS 'Unconference' - Sir Robert Winston's keynote interview
Lies and Statistics - social research; getting the truth from respondents
This page: Nerd-Free Zone? - in-game advertising; consumer engagement, YouTube vs TV
Research in a Recession - winners, losers and strategies
Glasses Half Full and Half Empty - social scene; threats and opportunities to the profession
Virtual Ethnography - multi-sourced consumer feedback from social media and elsewhere
On Human Behaviour - views from an anthropologist, a zoologist and an economist
MR as Storytelling; and Conference Conclusions - how was it for you?

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.