How is Advergame, among the most effective new generation marketing communication tools, this effective? What is Advergame, what is its secret? These are some questions we will try to find answers to.

Advergames are gamelike advertisements which are designed for entertainment of consumers and for presentation of brands’ products where main purpose is to maintain that customers spend more time with the brand in question. Brands generally create a seperate web site for advergames where internet users are lured to spend more time with activities involved in these sites.

Internet users began ignoring banners in the recent years. You can even block banner ads with some features included in mozilla browser. In other words, f your banner is not distinguised among others or it’s neither impressive nor different it can be said that users tend to close their windows immediately. For this reason we have begun to see different advertisement forms on the internet. It can also be said that brands are working towards catching their customers one by one and do not want their message to target audience to vanish among other countless messages.

E-mail marketing is also an enhanced marketing tool developed owing to these efforts. It is estimated that you require 50 seconds to have an effect on a user through e-mail. On the other hand, Advergames lure internet customers into their webs, they call on them for playing games, encourage them to beat their records, give out awards and thus customers spend more time with advergames.

Isn’t that what a brand wants when developing advergames? A brand may find the oppurtunity to present itself more closely to consumers, and have consumers spend more time with brands. Again through advergames, brand creates more sincere bonds with its consumers. It is never the main purpose to place direct advertisements in development of advergames.

How can advergames become more effective? Here are some answers;

• An advergame must be fun
• Must not reek with advertisements.
• Must not bore a person only playing it for 10 minutes
• If possible, must consist of stages and players must be able to gain progress along the game
• Must definitely include an award.
• If an advergame is to be designed, efforts must be made to make it the best despite its costs and keeping in mind its effectiveness

The most important of all, message of a brand and the brand to be driven forward must be nested in an advergame. Meaning, players must not be distracted with the game and forget about the brand which may cause decrease in advergames effectiveness, and they must not evaluate the advergame as only a game. An advergame should also include info about the brand for association with brand’s features.

Note: Due to the fact that banners’ effect on consumers rapidly decrease, brand developers start including small advergames in their banners. (What I’m trying to express here does not include ringtone download sites’ unattractive application) These highly enhanced banners push consumers to spend time in banners. They also give the opportunity to test products. Unfortunately it may take a while for people living in Turkey to be involved in these banners due to narrow bandwidths. I would like to conclude this entry with the wish to see such applications in our Country.