The holiday season has seen gaming brands upping the ante in the war for ad space. The timing is perfect to lure in all the gamers to indulge in their favorite pass time by promoting gaming devices, consoles and new game launches for themselves or to give away as presents.
The five big ad spenders of the season are gaming development companies and device manufacturers. Playstation 5 and Xbox along with Nintendo, Activision and EA Sports occupy the first 5 positions in terms of ad spends and TV spots.
Together, PlayStation and Nintendo chalked up 75% of the industry’s total spend. Overall, 14 brands aired 75 spots over 4,900, times, generating 1.9 billion TV ad impressions. The favorite spots were bought in sports telecasts, particularly football.
Gaming Companies
Gaming Companies Are The Big Ad Spenders
The gaming brands spent an estimated $49.7 million in November, up from October’s $28.1 million.
The brands are eager to push their gaming devices and the two main rivals—Microsoft and Sony obviously spent a large chunk of the $49 million. PlayStation’s heavy promotion of the Playstation 5 and Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War was almost half of this spend.
GamesBeat partnered with iSpotTv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution platform, to measure the spending of gaming brands and has revealed some interesting statistics.
Sony, with its anticipated Playstation 5 in the pipeline, has been a top spender all year. In November, it went all out, and spent $26.2 million on 12 commercials aired over 1,400 times, resulting in 966.2 million TV ad impressions.
“Launch: Play Has No Limits.” attracted the maximum spend with $5.6 million. NFL games got the major shrunk of this spend, almost half of the ad budget of Playstation 5. College football and SportCenter were the next big attractions for the advertisements, ESPN, Fox, and CBS benefitted most from the ads.
Gaming Companies Spend Statistics
Xbox came a close second in ad spend with an estimated $10.6 million, a 334.77% increase from October’s outlay. An estimated $7.2 million went in promoting “A New Life,” Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla Gold Edition.
Xbox too chose football display and the networks that benefitted were Fox, ESPN, and CBS.
The third place obviously is occupied by Nintendo. It spent $7 million on 32 spots that aired over 1,500 times, resulting in 323.7 million TV ad impressions. “Imagination,” promoting Mario Kart Live Home Circuit, was the top commercial by spend (estimated at $1.3 million). Nick, Fox, and ABC were the preferred networks. Top programming included SpongeBob SquarePants, The Loud House, and the NFL.
Activision is at fourth place, spending an estimated $2.9 million airing four spots 13 times, generating 96.8 million TV ad impressions. The company spent $1.2 million on “The Threat,” promoting Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War. Nearly all of Activision’s spend went to NFL games. Top networks included Fox, NBC, and ESPN.
EA Sports rounds up the rankings with fifth place and an estimated $1.3 million in spend on seven commercials that ran 78 times, resulting in 56.3 million TV ad impressions. The Madden NFL 21 spot “A New Era Feat. The Spokesplayer,” featuring King Keraun, got an estimated $523,616 outlay. Its display included the NFL, college football, and SportsCenter, while top networks included ESPN, ABC, and CBS.
Overall, global gaming revenues are set to increase to $160 billion in 2020, overtaking books, music or movies. So much so that companies are now looking at in-gaming advertising to take advantage of their popularity.