Video games are often ad free, but increasingly they're not brand-free. With branded characters, one-off events and even programmatic ads, marketers are finding more ways to get their brands into games — big picture, gaming has gone mainstream. And it was already well on its way to taking up a larger portion of attention away from other entertainment mediums but marketers hadn’t gambled on this shift happening so fast. When they finally did catch a glimpse of gaming as a cultural touchstone at the onset of the pandemic they didn’t have a playbook for in-game ads. Read more below. Other things to know about | | |
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| Brands in Culture | | | | As the gaming audience grows, advertisers have a new batch of businesses pursuing their media dollars — video game developers. | | |
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howdy! | Business of TV | | | | In January, IAC decided it was no longer willing to finance CollegeHumor and sold it to Sam Reich, who had joined the company in 2006 to build out original video. | | |
| Sponsored by Tipser | | | | Brands are striving to become more experience-led online through personalized product recommendations, customer reviews and product tutorials, but as e-commerce is set to boom they’ll need to do more to cater to consumers. | | |
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howdy! | Content & Commerce | | | | The NYC-focused marketplace, which offers everything from private dinners to cooking classes, will be braided into the rest of the Infatuation’s business next year. | | |
| Sponsored by Xandr | | | | The fast-paced growth of CTV has given rise to new terminology and nuances that buyers must understand to make strategic decisions. In this new guide, learn all the terms buyers should know when talking about CTV today. | | |
howdy! | Beyond Ads | | | | The 30 Under 30 franchise has given Forbes another avenue to sell its advertising clients on cross-platform campaigns for top dollar. | | |
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| Sponsored by Samsung Ads | | | | TV was long the easiest place for advertisers to reach the audiences they wanted, and at the scale they needed. That can still be true, but only if advertisers and agencies utilize a unified linear and digital data set to activate across the video ecosystem. | | |
howdy! | DIGIDAY+ MEMBER EXCLUSIVE | | | | Even if it’s a logical move to stretch out discounts typically reserved for Cyber Monday, it can create a more difficult environment for marketers. | | |
howdy! | Publishing in the Platform Era | | | | The deal can help to revitalize HuffPost’s sales pitch and address BuzzFeed News’ perception problem, according to agency executives. | | |
| Business of TV | | | | In January, IAC decided it was no longer willing to finance CollegeHumor and sold it to Sam Reich, who had joined the company in 2006 to build out original video. |
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