here is a very fresh link which I suppose you know already about :-) but where again your new company can set up a new brand service: http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,127...

I know you are not the 1st, it's hard to be the first. But YOU join them last week, so what's the problem. change the link on your profile :-) I am a real creative in all areas. I can come up with ideas 24hours a day. If clients doesn't come to you then you have to come to them. I mentioned LI-NING. The "CHINESE NIKE" They would die for Brand Buzz today and if you consider Videogames as platform to enter then what's wrong? Concerning the follow up of the IDEA, like a Tshirt shops, Why don't you create game dept. Where on your NEW gamers site you can download your new design branded by advertisers and then be sure all the folks advertisers will knock at your doors. Your site neither IGA do not show the space? When I want to brand i want to see where gone be my logo. Show Placement Maps, Arena, Players Alias, Product placement options, Wouldn't be fun to see virtual aliens, in shoot them up and other Droids wearing at their belt their own little Shuffle or Ipods, hear plugs on their head? ProvokActive nothing better to stimulate the bizz. ©2005 Olivier Clerc

Olivier, please read ingameadvertising.com and any other in-game advertising company out there...your ideas are in motion and currently under way. All good stuff and are on the right path...global convergence in the gaming platform is the place to be. Communication. Networks. there is a reason microsoft is investing millions (hundreds of millions) in the Xbox Live platform.

II would send you back to Michael Moore's "BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE". Today, in USA, What sells the most, out of those games themselfs, are the GUNS & other weapons. This documentary says all. Please just brand clean & clever games, and they are TONS of them, and forget about all those "SHOOT THEM UP" platform, They are dead. I Want to sell my brand to clever consumers, because my brand or my product is CLEVER too. Therefore EA GAMES, choose segment like sports emphasizing competition & win spirit as VALUES. And i think the audience is definitively better captured when I am ZIDANE playing Soccer, (the game with the SPHERIC BALL) And suddenly I am acclaimed by thousand of virtual FANS. But I am still surprised that no one here do not mentionned the NETWORK GAMES platform were you can compete, interact and team up with THOUSANDS of worldwide gamers. and Here come one of the FUTURE BRANDING then. Virtual, Dynamic & realtime stadium or Arena and players, CUSTOMIZED by gamers.( Jesse Tayler, you can find there big sources of inspirations for you social network app. let's dig a bit where curiosity might bring you) - Here the 1ST DAYLY IDEA©2005: Why Sports apparel brands, like ADDIDAS or LI-NING, do not have on their own designers programmers' team which make downloadable for FREE, ready made complete all design collection or EVEN NEW NEW collection of DRESSINGS for all the EA games (NHL, NBA, SOCCER, GOLF, tennis, ...)? dream dressings for DREAMTeams. They can therefore test how successful could be their new design with for virtual FAN players. etc ... - Here is the 2nd DAILY IDEA©2005: EA GAMES or UBISOFT, INFOGRAMES, or should open a MEDIANETGAME AGENCY© which allow real interactive MEDIA management on NETWORK GAMES, therefore the real time Stadium or arena are updated with VIRTUAL SPONSORING CAMPAIGN for NETgames? a bunch of programmer preparing, updating arenas, managing mediacampaigns, and launching virtual competition ©2005 Olivier Clerc It exists already WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP of NETGAMERS, but Where are the sponsors except those from platform and games editors' brands? It's useles to mention others games like Strategy, or even better like Social life simulators SIMS' CITY. Aren't we playin this game right now?

Great blog. Think it does all go back to audience and attitude about the audience. Also, think about the implications of a brand endorsing "violence to youth" is a big red flag to a lot of companies. Someone had mentioned it below... the control of a tv show/movie vs the control of a video game seems to be miles apart. Although video is more "controlled chaos" it's chaos nonetheless.

Raises a point I always find interesting - back in the 70's or so, cartoons didn't feature guns. I was told it was because of some FCC or legislative stuff saying you couldn't show guns firing. So they used sword and lasers instead. Hence lasers in GI Joe, and swords in cartoons like Thundar the Barbarian, He-Man, and the Thundercats (Ho!).

But I've always thought blades were more gruesome than guns. You shoot somebody, you get a nice little hole in the chest. You cleave somebody with a sword, and you're going to get brains and lungs all over the floor. Doesn't seem to be "cleaner" to me. Like, "Braveheart" was hardly a clean movie.

Great thought provoking blog Darren. It seems to me Michael touched on what must be on the minds of the brand police. In television - unless it's made for cable of course - even then - most of the violence is implied. It is up to our imaginations to "realize" the violence. In video games you have it right there on the screen, you see it happening, no need for imagination. In television - we sit back and watch it, in video games we are an integral part of it. As a mom my kids watch movies with sword-fights all the time. They go to school and start acting out the fighting they see. I think the danger brands have is the level of participatory violence and their association to it. The consumer is creating the violence everytime they punch, blow-up, hack, shoot and run over the characters. It is different.

I think a good blood-stain remover company would be a great advertiser for most of these video games. Just as the street thug blows away a bystander, there can be a prompt with a product placement to clean up the blood...and it gets blood stains out of your shirt.

The obvious difference to me, as a parent of boys who play Halo2, Grand Theft Auto and other video games with gore flying everywhere, is that you know exactly when and where and how much violence is being spewed as you have that controller in your hand. It's fairly random on a typical TV show; it'll be there somewhere, but generally spotty within a lengthy program. When my 13-year-old is playing Grand Theft Auto, I know that he is a few seconds away from blowing some cop's head off or cutting up some bystander. Megagross stuff. Thank God it's time for them to play baseball and get outside. So my answer is, you can hide an ad in a TV show that might have some violence; you and everyone else knows how you are putting your brand next to blood and guts with a video game, though.

All fabulous contributions here! I can go into numbers in the video game industry and talk about all certain demographics of games, etc; but the one thing that will remain is the perceived audience in the brand leaders mind. It is just goint to take time :)

This is a great example of perception versus reality as Will points out. As the age/demographics of videogamers might be perceived as narrower than accurate, unfortunately there is no definite timetable of the agency/brand/consumer education process. And this can be applied to mediums beyond those mentioned, as well as applied to other media misconceptions. For example I'm faced everyday with sales reps presenting their magazines and other media that might or might not work for our brand for many reasons, including that the "environment" is not appropriate/relevant. And when a once inappropriate magazine re-launches and appeals to a completely different demographic/age group that might be a better fit, it still takes a lot of educating/convincing. Firstly because it takes time for the medium to re-establish itself and gain reputation for its change (or its reality that was ultimately misperceived) and secondly because the sell-in process to senior management (speaking for in-house agencies) or to the client can be complex. I've seen shifts of acceptance take weeks or years.

Darren, I think is is a matter of control. Once a movie or tv show is shot it can be reviewed and approved, contracts are written to make sure that the brand is not denegrated in any way. In video games since the content isn't static, people can interact with a brand in diferent ways, they could for instance repeatedly crash their car in a racing game into a person wearing a coke t-shirt. I think brand leaders will be nervous about allowing interaction with their brand that they don't have any control over. I'm sure some of this can be regulated but as the father of two teenage boys, I know if it can be done, they will find a way to do it. I also think that decision makers generally understand what they are getting in terms of tv and movies, one of your challenges must be to get decisionmakers to get on the games and see what is happening. Have you ever thought about targeting the kids of marketing decision makers to educate thier parents on what is available? Probably not feasible but it would defintely be a way to get them to check out a marketing opportunity.

I'm pretty sure we've all seen statistics becoming more and more clear that there are millions more non-teenager videogamers than people keep thinking they are. Video games haven't been kids games for a long time.

Yet Britney Spears and Xtina Aguillera started selling sex imagery to little girls from the get-go, and they seem to have no problems landing sponsorships. I see kids going off to the 5th grade dressed like hookers, but I don't see 5th graders jacking cars to help with their mercenary work for local mafia dons.

I wrote an article for my local paper a little while back showing how Grand Theft Auto should be something teachers could spin into a teaching tool more easily (and with bigger impact, no pun intended) than not. I mean, teaching is all about making connections with your kids -- you can teach physics talking about a car jumping off a ramp. What does Britney grinding with a snake teach us?

i think there is a fine line between the violence and sex where you, as a viewer, are reading between the lines (ie: television shows) and gratuitous gore (video games) that have arms being cut off and heads exploding...you're probably correct that eventually the ongoing desensitization of our consumers will make this a non-issue, but, as we saw with janet's nipple and the fact that the news will still not show heinous images from Iraq or Sri Lanka, mainstream television isn't buying into the graphic images...yet.

Lots of things come to mind, I think one particular challenge facing video games in particular, is the perceived market. The Soprano's marketers don't worry about. It's on HBO, it has warnings, they watch it. Video games...even when all data suggests otherwise, they still think only 12-16 year olds play. So violence there seems like it is more, targeted? (For lack of a better word.) - Convincing them of broader audience appeal will be huge. As will assurances that the product won't be taken off the shelves by angry mothers (and them sued in process). - Self policing of the gaming market will help. But it is a stigma that will take a while to change I fear.