4-page Case Study - Posted 11/21/2007

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Microsoft Online Customer Story: Jeep

“We are not a captive audience.”
Finding the right vehicle for in-game advertising.

Placing advertising inside and around video games is fast becoming one of the most powerful tools for advertisers seeking to reach their target audiences. But just throwing a logo in the middle of gameplay doesn’t mean your gamers will greet it with a smile—or with open pocketbooks. The central question remains: What does effective integration of a brand into a game look like, and how can you be sure that it’s working?

You’ll hear a lot of talk around the marketing water cooler about purchase drivers. But what if getting people to react positively to a brand—and hopefully influencing their future automobile purchases—actually involved them driving a virtual vehicle? That was the landscape that faced automaker Jeep, market researcher Millward Brown, and the Microsoft® teams that came together to explore the effectiveness of in-game advertising in the popular Microsoft® Xbox® title, Zoo Tycoon 2®: Endangered Species.

The Zoo Tycoon series, which provides gamers of all ages with creative opportunities to build and run their own virtual zoos, has proved enormously popular—a popularity that is renewed with each expansion pack released for the game. With its reach and extensibility, Zoo Tycoon 2 presents a prime opportunity for advertisers looking to use in-game brand placement to appeal to consumers.

One compelling feature of Zoo Tycoon 2 is the ability to include a driving tour that visitors can take through the virtual zoo environs. Jeep, which is among the most recognizable brands on American roads, seized a chance to add its presence to the game through this feature, providing eager tycoons with their choice of realistic Jeep Wrangler or Jeep Commander models for the tours. “They can purchase a Jeep, put it on the track, and the players inside the game can ride it—getting both an interior and exterior view of the vehicle, and seeing the zoo up close and personal,” says Pedro Gutierrez, Product Planner for Microsoft Xbox.

At face value, it seemed like a perfect fit—what other vehicle brand would you expect on a rugged outdoor zoo tour? But the Microsoft team knew that when it comes to gamers, face value is rarely a reliable benchmark. Deeply engaged in gameplay, their reaction to an intrusive or poorly integrated piece of in-game advertising can prove disastrous, resulting not only in negative brand impact for the advertiser, but possibly even reduced popularity for the game itself.

If that wasn’t enough of a challenge, there was another influential factor in the decision to place advertising in this particular game—its unique audience. “Zoo Tycoon 2 is a game that is played parent with child. Parents can watch or actually program information into the game as they sit alongside their child,” says Pedro Gutierrez. Would young gamers recognize the Jeep brand? How would parents react to the presence of advertising in one of their children’s games? And what would the placement mean to parents themselves, both as gamers and as adult consumers?

Millward Brown, in concert with the Microsoft Usability Labs, conducted two complementary studies—one qualitative, one quantitative—intended to answer these critical questions. In the

qualitative study, seven groups of parents and children were invited to play the game and share their reactions to the Jeep integration through interviews. In addition to recording these responses, researchers were able to monitor the whole gaming environment, capturing what was happening on screen as well as player behaviors and real-time reactions.

The consumers not only saw this type of advertising as non-intrusive, they actually saw it as enhancing and improving the game that they were playing, Stephen Kim Director of Global Research for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions

On the quantitative side, the outlook was equally bright. Since the Jeep campaign featured Web site advertising in addition to the in-game integration, the research team looked at responses from samples who were exposed and unexposed to the advertising and gameplay.  Their analysis revealed several distinct positives.

Even in pre-launch advertising, the study found that exposure to the Jeep brand on the Zoo Tycoon 2 sites effectively lifted key awareness metrics. And, once exposed to the in-game placement, respondents reacted very positively, with many able to remember the Jeep brand in the game. “In the quantitative study on the Web site, we had a very high recall rate—both aided and unaided,” says Gutierrez.

As further indication of positive connections between the brand and the consumer, 66 percent of study respondents indicated that they liked the inclusion of real-world products into games when done appropriately. Seventy-eight percent of those identified Jeep as an appropriate brand for Zoo Tycoon 2, 74 percent found that Jeep added realism to the game, and 61 percent believed that Jeep added to the gaming experience itself.

Sixty-one percent of research respondents in the Millward Brown study said that Jeep added to the Zoo Tycoon 2 gaming experience.

Perhaps most significant, the study showed that gameplay delivered a “substantial positive shift in the high consideration category of automobiles.” Put simply, respondents who played Zoo Tycoon 2—versus those who didn't play the game—are significantly more likely to consider a Jeep Commander the next time they are in the market for an SUV.

These results bode well for the continued success of Jeep—and perhaps other brands—as it advertises in Zoo Tycoon 2. The results also validate the project team’s hope that it is possible to strike a balance between engaged, passionate gameplay and in-game advertising that is not only acceptable to gamers, but appreciated by them. And because of studies like this one—combining the experience of Microsoft’s diverse teams and the insight of partners like Millward Brown—there will be many more opportunities for strategic success in the in-game advertising market.

As Stephen Kim puts it, “We’re really excited by this study because we know that in-game advertising has a very bright future. And we also know that there are lots of open questions about how it works and how advertisers can make it work even better. That’s the challenge we’re setting out to solve.”

For more information, go to www.microsoft.com.