The world’s most advanced in-game advertising platform Anzu .io, and Lumen Research, an attention technology company, have today revealed collective results from research carried out together across a series of mobile and PC campaigns over the past 12 months, examining the power of attention within intrinsic in-game advertising.

The study used Lumen’s cutting-edge eye-tracking technology to monitor player attention levels within in-game ad campaigns across multiple ad categories, including automotive, education, energy, entertainment, fashion, CPG, QSR, retail, and tech. Some of the brands that took part include Amazon, Dell, Vodafone, Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Subway, and EMPIRE.

Mike Follett, Managing Director of Lumen Research said: “Anzu has conducted attention tests amongst 5,000 respondents globally, giving them the richest and most robust attention dataset for gaming advertising in the world. This means that we can speak with some confidence when we say that Anzu’s inventory delivers high attention, high recall and significant shifts in brand perception and purchase intent for advertisers.”

With 83% of in-game ads viewed compared to Lumen’s benchmark of 62%, the findings show that gamers are 34% more likely to view an in-game ad than those placed on other digital channels like social media and websites.

Across the studies average spontaneous advertising recall was 36%, with the best performing campaigns achieving over 70%. Regarding purchase intent, 61% said they would definitely or probably buy the brand in the future representing a significant uplift of 9%. Looking at prompted brand awareness, the studies saw an average of 71% across the test audiences, and 68% of the test audiences also agreed that the advertising was suited to the brand. Overall the research clearly demonstrates the power intrinsic in-game advertising has in helping advertisers to effectively communicate with massive gaming audiences and achieve their campaign goals.

On the findings, Itamar Benedy, Co-Founder and CEO of Anzu, said, “These results clearly demonstrate the power in-game advertising has to drive attention which then converts to brand recall, favorability, and purchase intent, demonstrating how brands can use in-game to reach consumers at every stage of the marketing funnel. By adding in-game to the marketing mix advertisers can supercharge their campaigns, and with the new MRC and IAB guidelines having just been released, the medium has never been a more attractive proposition for advertisers. As we deliver more studies with Lumen, we look forward to sharing more research highlights, including benchmarks by advertiser category.”

Peter Kadin, SVP of Marketing at EMPIRE said: “In-game advertising has played a key role in

helping us drive attention and ramp up excitement for our artists, with campaigns far exceeding what we are used to from other digital channels. Our latest in-game ad campaign delivered an outstanding composite attention score that was 3.9x our desktop display benchmark, along with 93% viewability on PC and 94% on mobile. The high attention levels and huge reach have allowed our artist to stand out in an extremely saturated market.” 

Bidstack, the in-game advertising and video game monetisation platform, today announces it has raised a total of USD $11 million in a new round of funding. This includes a $6 million strategic investment from digital platform cybersecurity world leader, Irdeto, and brings Bidstack’s total funding to $42 million – the most raised for any company in the in-game advertising industry to-date.

This is the first strategic investment in Bidstack’s seven-year history and will fuel the pioneering company’s US growth strategy following the recent hire of Jude O’Connor as Chief Revenue Officer. With more than 80 staff across five international locations, Bidstack now has the infrastructure and talent in place to take on the huge, untapped opportunity for in-game advertising in the US market. Bidstack has already run award-winning in-game campaigns for brands such as Marriott Bonvoy, Paco Rabanne, and Doritos, and works with world-leading game publishers such as Codemasters, and Take-Two Interactive.

Irdeto entered the video games industry with the acquisition of anti-cheat software company Denuvo. The company’s suite of software products are used by a majority of leading console, PC, and mobile titles, creating extensive synergies with Bidstack’s ever-growing developer and publisher network, and breadth of ad formats which now includes rewarded video in addition to in-game and in-menu.

James Draper, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Bidstack, commented

“I am pleased to share that we have secured our first strategic investment, from Irdeto B.V. Irdeto, part of the Multichoice Group, is established as one of the world’s leading cybersecurity businesses, with their gaming division Denuvo being trusted as a leading anti-cheat middleware across the world’s most celebrated gaming platforms and franchises. Irdeto’s positioning across the gaming and entertainment space will lead to many opportunities for our two companies to collaborate going forward, as strategic partners.”

Globally, the in-game advertising market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11% to 2030, from its current estimated valuation of $7.6 billion. This figure represents just under 1% of the $850 billion global advertising market, despite more than three billion people playing games on a daily basis.

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