Reaching Modern Gamers Requires A New Approach from Marketers

If you were to guess what form of entertainment generates the most revenue globally, perhaps you’d assume it was video streaming, music, or even live-sports. However, you wouldn't be alone if you overlooked gaming. Although obvious to insiders, reaching gamers remains elusive to many marketers. How is it then, that the world’s largest, and most passionate audience is still mysterious to many and under-represented in the planning budgets of brands across all major verticals? Until recently, the answer was a lack of access for advertisers to reach them effectively in and adjacent to gameplay. However, with a new generation of consoles and the rise of cloud gaming changing what’s possible for consumers, new opportunities are arising for marketers to reach gamers when and where it matters.

Gamers are not new, but how they’re engaging with their favorite games and other entertainment forms is shifting rapidly and the battle for their attention is fierce. As an audience, they remain one of the most passionate, engaged, and tech savvy communities, spending an average of over two hours per day gaming on their Smart TVs. 

With the recent arrival of the next-generation of consoles from PlayStation and Xbox, the overall size of the gaming audience also increased by +21% in 2021, to over 20 million U.S. gamers on Samsung Smart TVs alone. These next-gen gamers in particular spend over 60% more time with their consoles than previous generation gamers, which creates even more competition for advertisers looking to reach them before and after gaming sessions. Now is the time for advertisers to embrace non-traditional, data driven solutions to reach this key audience effectively.

The Opportunity is Obvious

While the opportunity to engage with an audience that over-indexes on consumption of tech, travel and dining is obvious for advertisers, the road to reach gamers has been challenging. In fact, 80% of all the time that gamers spend with their TV is in digital environments that are unreachable by traditional TV advertising. This is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it’s the primary reason gamers are so passionate and engaged when they are in-play, and raises the value of advertising that can be delivered pre and post game-session. In sum, it’s data that gives brands the ability to reach gamers adjacent to game-play and allows marketers to predict where they’ll be during non-gaming Smart TV engagement. 

Who are Gamers?

Gamers are not your average audience when it comes to linear TV consumption. Gamers spend 42% less time with linear compared to other viewers and 74% of Gamers rely mostly or entirely on streaming services for their TV viewing. Clearly, to reach gamers effectively advertisers must shift linear budgets to Connected TV (CTV), and make use of the strategic first party data available from leading Smart TV OEMs who are seamlessly keyed into consumer gaming habits and console use.

For anyone who’s ever measured targeted CTV advertising, the value is clear. And that value is not just for marketers but for consumers also – they are buying what you’re selling. Data driven campaigns that are able to reacha gamers at a critical time in the purchase cycle with ads are amongst the most effective available, and can be as straightforward as a high impact home-screen tile ahead of game play sessions. And with the arrival of game-streaming, and gamer-centric entertainment platforms such as the recently launched Samsung Gaming Hub, new ad products adjacent to and potentially within gaming-sessions are on the horizon for marketers.

Make it Easy

Reaching gamers does not need to be challenging, in fact, campaigns that integrate gaming audiences specifically are likely to be some of your best performing. With the size of the gaming community increasing and the time spent in-play also growing rapidly, any plan that excludes gamers is incomplete. 

Whether you’re a game publisher, QSR brand, technology provider, or entertainment platform, gamers can grow your business and give you the competitive edge in a future that will be increasingly gamified. That future is already here, and now is the time to level up.