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ESPORTS & GAMING
says Dabhelia. “Advertising within gaming was always thought of as being intrusive, like rewarded video, where you can’t move forward until you react or watch the ads. In the past two to three years, we’ve started to see games such as Fortnite – and the metaverse – really grow with all these new opportunities. And Covid-19 actually helped propel the IGA industry forward.” Dabhelia joined Bidstack in 2020, just as the UK went into lockdown. “That year was a massive education, telling people about the benefits of in-game advertising and getting their heads around the
“Sometimes an advertiser targets a game because they want their brand to be everywhere. But we get clients that say, ‘Can we just target females over 18?’ Or, if there is a company like Marriott affiliated with Manchester United, they will ask for placement only inside Manchester United’s stadium in the game Football Manager,” says Dabhelia. Creative approval is built into the ecosystem. “We are educating advertisers specifically on how to build formats for gaming. As soon as their ad comes to our platform, it won’t go live until it passes our process and the game publisher
non-intrusiveness of it. By 2021, brands were beginning to invest in the space and recognise it as a serious media channel.” PLAYING THE GAME Bidstack has a proprietary supply- side platform (SSP), that allows publishers to trade in-game ads programmatically, facilitating commercial agreements with agencies and brands. Using Bidstack’s AdConsole platform, advertisers and game developers can monitor campaign progress, manage creative approvals, analyse inventory and track key performance metrics.
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MAY/JUNE 2022 FEED:XTREME
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