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The age of excess is clearly over. UK games firms are spending 99m on advertising this Christmas, MCV can reveal.
That’s a drop of 40 per cent year-on-year.
The figures are based on a survey of the biggest companies in the UK games industry. In comparison, publishers, retailers and developers spent 165m on advertising during Q4 2011,
Our research is in-line with the state of the advertising market so far this year. According to Generation Media, TV advertising ‘pressure’ measured in ratings for video games is 37 per cent down so far in 2012, while industry recorded spend has dropped 41 per cent.
The video game industry has been one of the market leaders in terms of advertising declines in 2012. So it’s certainly not a surprise to see that continue into Christmas,” Generation Media’s AV?manager Jonathan Chambers told MCV.
The marketing departments appear to be the area that has been most heavily hit by the sales declines posted in the market this year.In comparison, the toy market has been relatively flat in terms of advertising spend year-over-year.”
However, not every area of video games advertising is in decline. Marketing for certain big triple-A releases has never been bigger, with titles including Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed III claiming budgets of 4m or more.
Meanwhile, it is important to note that some of the biggest releases over the coming months – including Nintendo Wii U, Activison’s Skylanders Giants and Sony’s Wonderbook – are targeting broader and younger audiences, says Chambers.
Buying around kids media is a lot more cost effective than booking advertising around programming aimed at the 16 to 34 year-old male,” he said.
