Social Gaming: Untapped Opportunity

Consumer packaged goods companies are missing a trick by not realizing the power of social gaming as a marketing tool, finds Datamonitor.

The independent market analyst believes that with a mere 2% of marketing budgets going on digital media as a whole, CPG companies are neglecting the importance and relevance of social gaming to their marketing campaigns.

“Social gaming could not be more relevant to CPG companies, yet they are far behind other industries in realizing the potential," said David Bird, analyst, Datamonitor. "Consumers get extremely passionate about their food and drink choices specifically, and as games that ignite this passion do well, the two are a perfect fit.”

With the number of social networking memberships set to continue to increase over the next four years (by 21.3 million in the UK alone) dedicating a larger budget to social gaming could prove very lucrative for CPG companies.

However, Datamonitor believes that investing in existing social games could prove most successful for many companies.

“Creating an original social game may appear easy but it is very hard to produce a game that combines addictive game play with a direct connection to a brand’s value," warns Bird. "Therefore sponsorship and joint-venture game extensions could prove more successful, especially as some of the games, like Farmville and Mafia Wars, attract tens of millions of regular players. Partnering with one of these is a very affect way of reaching and engaging with a brands target audience.”

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