A new wave of advertising

People have always questioned the effectiveness of advertisements in general. Whether or not they really work and whether they really convince people to buy their products has always been a big debate. There has been a lot of studies done to see whether the advertisements seem to do anything and often it seems that they do have some sort of effect on consumers.

When a company starts a new ad campaign, often their sales spike for a short period. This shows some sort of effectiveness of ads. When a consumer sees a Burger King commercial or an Outback Steakhouse commercial, they often develop a hunger for those places soon after. That alone is a sign that the advertising worked. It can also be seen that after a company sends out coupons or puts an ad in the paper, the business increases, which is something that I have personally seen at my job. Oftentimes, when we have a new advertisement in the Sunday paper, there is a line of people waiting at the door in the morning for the better sales.

However, the bigger discussion here is that of advertisements in video games. Many gamers have started to notice corporations advertising in their games. A random Coca-Cola ad or Sprite ad isn't so uncommon now. Sometimes the main characters can wear clothing from a certain company or eat a certain brand of food. Other times, the ads are simpler, such as a billboard on a highway in a racing game or even a logo on a racecar.

The interesting thing about advertisements in video games is that they have the ability to be much more effective than a normal advertisement. When someone is watching television or a movie, they can simply ignore the ads or walk away. When a person is playing a video game, the person is often devoting all his or her attention to it and not considering anything else around them. Due to this alone, the ads have the possibility to be even more effective. A player might see an ad without even noticing it, which could cause some sort of subliminal effect or maybe cause a thought about the product to later cross the player's mind. Ads have even been made for the recent presidential election.

This new medium for ads is possibly one of the most effective ones that has been found. With games keeping the players completely concentrated on them, it's easy for the players to be taken in by everything they see on the screen, which would include the advertisements. As much as people may despise all the ads they see every day, there is no arguing that ads in video games are effective and clever. When Sonic is seen wearing a certain pair of shoes, that is the kind of shoes a child may want. If Mario were seen drinking a can of Coke, that would be the next thing the gamer would think of to drink. It's a simple idea, but the effectiveness is impossible to deny. Advertisements in video games will work and are already making an impact on consumers and their habits.