My take on In-Game Advertising

Yesterday, my buddy Anthony, who's a heck of a social marketer and general all around good guy, posted about how he was excited that the Obama campaign has looked at non traditional advertising venues, including in-games ads.

My take is a lot different from his, and reflects what I was thinking when I wrote about mobile advertising.

To me... in the case on both Mobile Ads and In-Game ads, it's a clear case of double-dipping on behalf of the manufacturer, and it's a model that only the Cable companies have managed to succeed on (you pay for cable or satellite TV... while ALSO being advertised to).

If I'm going to shell out $70 for a game... or $100 monthly for my cell service.... I don't want it to come with ads. Pure and simple.

I think for mobile ads or in game ads to be something I'd be willing to live with, there would have to be some sort of trade-off. For example, if EA Sports wanted to send me a free copy of Madden 2009, with the expectation that I'll deal with advertisements (preferably non-intrusive advertisements at that), I'd be much more likely.

For Sprint, if they wanted to knock off 40% of my cell phone bill, in return for me putting up with a couple texts a day advertising something (think of the GPS and hyper-local targeting that could come with this... it's a market's dream come true), I'd be down with that.

But for me... I am only going to be accepting of new forms of advertising when the company hosting the ads gives me something in return.