MiQ’s Freddie Turner, Director of Strategy UK and Ivor McLaren, Senior Solutions Engineer, explore the new-found ways that marketers can use programmatic advertising in gaming and make the most of recent console and title releases.
Using MiQ data, they profile the modern gamer and show how reaching them could be a valuable new option for advertisers.
As we look ahead to 2021, one of the key industry questions is: can we get back to business as usual? The answer is yes and no.
That might sound a touch non-committal, but hear us out. Although the industry has been through a lot this year – ad spend instability, new privacy regulations and more – many aspects of routine have changed for good; namely, within the gaming space. The pandemic saw a huge spike for this sector, but consumer behaviour will continue to adapt – for marketers, the trick is to be ready for the new normal.
The old normal and the new normal
When we were plunged into lockdown, consumer behaviour instantly changed. MiQ’s research showed sudden and significant increases in consumption of learning content (40% of respondents have added one new skill to their repertoire over lockdown), growth in online gaming (up 37% on mobile and 63% on console) and younger audiences switching on to news content in droves (18-34s up 40%).
Even after the mid-lockdown peak, many of these spikes returned to higher ‘normal’ levels, with interest in e-learning spiking by +80% during lockdown, and continuing to be up 20% compared to pre-lockdown. Additionally, news consumption, which spiked for 18-34 year olds during lockdown by 25%, eased after restrictions did but were still up 17% compared to pre-lockdown.
As the UK saw different restriction rules imposed and lifted, it was inevitable that fatigue would set in; Zoom fatigue, homemade sourdough bread fatigue and even Netflix fatigue. In their Q3 results, Netflix actually fell short on their predicted subscriber growth, demonstrating the fact that consumer behaviour is beginning to resemble that of pre-lockdown, and possibly there is such a thing as too much television. The old normal is kicking in again.
