Randy Gordon

"Ubi Soft is pleased to support INVERT' 2001," said Randy Gordon, Vice President of Marketing, Ubi Soft Entertainment."The PlayStation®2 version of Batman Vengeance will hit stores October 16th.Sunny Garcia Surfing will launch October 23rd and Disney's TarzanTM Untamed is not far behind launching in November.These games, in addition to Rayman® Arena and INVERT, embody high-end competition and striving for top performance."

One problem with this type of adverainment is that "if you ask for money, every company has to give its approval (for the game), which can complicate its launch date, especially if one company complains that its logo is smaller than someone else's," said Randy Gordon, vice-president for marketing services at UbiSoft Entertainment (Emery, 2002). ...

And "if you ask for money, every company has to give its approval (for the game), which can complicate its launch date, especially if one company complains that it's logo is larger than someone else's," said Randy Gordon, vice president for marketing services at UbiSoft Entertainment, who oversaw product placement for Sony in the 1990s.

Instead, the placements are usually made in exchange for some type of promotional deal.
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Said Gordon: "It's a lot cheaper than buying 30-second spots on VH-1 or MTV."

"It has to be unobtrusive," said Randy Gordon, vice president of marketing at Ubi Soft."You know [maybe] a Mello Yello banner just happens to be in the background, and you just cruised right by it.Maybe you saw it, and maybe you didn't.I think it does lend some credibility to the game."

Advertisements in Games One of the most blatant recent product placements was the Dole banana in Sega's "Super Monkey Ball."
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"When you go through the exercise of adding up how many times is said gamer exposed to that banner ad -- over the course of three hours, on a daily basis, and over three months -- the impressions go into the millions," Gordon said.

What gamers may not know, however, is that this kind of brand exposure doesn't necessarily bring developers rolls of cash.More likely, companies swap advertising, as with the "Super Monkey Ball" deal.

"If you go through the exercise of how many times is said gamer exposed to that banner ad over the course of three months playing a game, the impressions get into the millions," said Randy Gordon, Ubi Soft Entertainment's vice president of marketing services."Rather than trying to do a buy on MTV, an advertiser would get the same delivery and demographic as they would through television."

Gordon said he thinks big-name companies will be more likely to advertise in games once the products become more interactive.

"The payoff that the in-game partner will be looking for is this: 'Beyond the game, what can we do here?We want to be able to get a coupon or have some sort of interaction that involves some consumption of that product rather than a banner while someone's zipping by [on] a snowboard,'" he said.

But the question is: Will the increased advertising alienate gamers?

And "if you ask for money, every company has to give its approval (for the game), which can complicate its launch date, especially if one company complains that its logo is larger than someone else's," said Randy Gordon, vice president for marketing services at UbiSoft Entertainment, who oversaw product placement for Sony in the 1990s.

Instead, the placements are usually made in exchange for some type of promotional deal.

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Said Gordon: "It's a lot cheaper than buying 30-second spots on VH-1 or MTV."

Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited.Click for Restrictions.