Playfish launches premium in-game campaigns
Creative monetization will drive revenues for game providers. Dependence on advertising revenue is a no-win situation.
Social games company Playfish just launched a new premium in-game ad campaign with Procter & Gamble and Herbal Essences via the Geo Challenge Facebook game in the UK.
In April Playfish launched in-game advertising with Google and in July launched in-game transactions with Paypal. The launch of this new premium game shows some of the advertising possibilities available during this economic downturn.
The upside? An audience that already likes the Geo Challenge game who are likely willing to experiment with this new module resulting in increased brand awareness. The downside? This doesn't seem easy to do as Playfish basically had to create a new game, which takes time and effort.
Geo Challenge - 'The Great Escape' Edition brought to you by Herbal Essences from Playfish on Vimeo.
The challenge for Playfish and others is the fact that their games and applications are on Facebook and not standalone. Playfish has clearly been smarter than others by branching out into more than advertising, but everyone still has to play by Facebook's rules.