» Now we have in-house, outdoor advertising.

Now we have in-house, outdoor advertising.

May 6th, 2006

If you want evidence of how much advertising is changing, look at the company Microsoft has just bought, called Massive.

Massive sells and manages advertisements inside computer games, particularly online games. As the report in The Guardian said:

â€œMassive’s technology enables the delivery of ads within online games, often in formats that mirror real-life advertising media.

â€œHoardings, billboards and poster sites are commonly seen in games, especially sports titles, which attempt to mirror reality by providing the same look as, say, a real golf course, basketball court or racing track.

â€œThe likes of Xbox and PlayStation have enabled gamers to play against each other in living rooms across the globe, who are now effectively linked in a real-time online world.

â€œBecause the ads are delivered in real-time, MSN is aiming to sell the value of the service on the back of its ability to target individuals or small groups of consumers.

â€œNot only are the in-game ads updateable and trackable, elements such as the geographic location of the player, particular audience demographics or time of playing can be catered for and delivered globally.â€?

This will enable advertisers to reach that growing, young group of people who are spending more time online than watching television in particular.

The estimate is that this kind of advertising will be worth $1-billion by 2010.

So there you have it. Virtual ads in virtual places in virtual games. Only the products themselves are real (I hope).

I have one question: if you buy a billboard in an outdoor position in a game, is it outdoor advertising, or in-house, or in-house outdoor, or outdoor in-house, or virtual outdoor, or what?

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Online

1 Comment Add your own

1. Pierre van Zyl | May 24th, 2006 at 9:24 pm

When I buy a computer game, the assumption is that I would own (through licencing) that virtual reality real estate. It is only by consent that others may join in the game and modify that virtual world.

Opportunistic, real-time marketing intrusions like these, cousin to the web page pop-up, are an infringement of privacy and should only be referred to as Outhouse Advertising.

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Anton Harber: Media

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio

Daily newspaper sales, South Africa
(Ave sales Jul-Dec)
1960 - 681 053 (Population 17,3m)
1970 - 723 566 (22m)
1980 - 803 229 (27,5m)
1990 - 1 214 396 (35,2m)
2000 - 1 117 886 (44m)
2006 - 1 600 000 (47,3m)
2011 - 1 310 000 (49m)

(Sources: ABC and nationmaster.com)

“It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools. As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results …” - Educationist Jonathan Jansen, one of the few with the credibility to look critically at this “celebratory orgy of mediocrity”.

“The (Incwala) ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the (Swaziland) king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation. Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull … But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch.” - Some surprises in this (un-bylined) account of Swaziland politics in Southern African Report

“When the Great Zucchini arrived that Saturday morning, Don had no idea who he was. Frankly, he didn’t look like a great anything. He looked like a house painter, Don thought, with some justification. He wears no costume. He was in painter’s pants, a coffee-stained shirt and a two-day growth of beard. He toted his beat-up props in beat-up steamer trunks, with ripped faux leather and broken hinges hanging askew.” - A classic of magazine profiling, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.

Diepsloot (Jonathan Ball, 2011)

Diesploot: Of Frogs and Fractals, a public lecture at the University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011

Troublemakers - The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism (Jacana, 2101), edited by Anton Harber and Margaret Renn

Introduction - The Troublemakers: An account of the rise of a new wave of investigative journalism in South Africa.

What is Left Unsaid: Reporting the South African HIV Epidemic, edited by Kristin Palitza, Natalie Ridgard, Helen Struthers and Anton Harber (Fanele, 2010)