Off Madison Ave in a PS3/Xbox360 Game

We’re really proud of this! Off Madison Ave has its own car in Baja: Edge of Control from THQ, on the PS3 and Xbox 360 systems. See all of our screenshots here. Advertising in the form of video game appearances has been discussed a lot in recent years, obviously because the technology allows for some pretty dazzling placements. (I mean, LOOKIT THAT CAR! Okay, I’ll stop.) The value of the placements, however, is also subject to debate. While the ads don’t necessarily have the level of tracking your search or banner advertising may carry, instead they could serve you in some very important ways. For starters, there’s the brand recognition. Even if a player isn’t looking directly at the billboard with your name on it in Grand Theft Auto, it appears several times, depending on where the player goes and what they look at. This is almost exactly what would happen if you purchased billboard space in the real world – some people see it, some people don’t. The difference is, one person will see it a lot. If you’ve had to steal crates from the San Andreas army base using that forklift, you know what I mean. What’s more, there are a lot of gamers. Despite what is going on in the economy, video game sales continue to hold. Why? They’re relatively cheap. Sure, the new Tony Hawk game will cost a consumer $50, but they also know they will get several hours of entertainment for their money. They are dedicated to playing often, and if the game is good they’ll invest a lot of hours in it. The company with the ad placement in that game can stand to get a lot of eyeballs on their brand. Not all of these players may become direct customers because of a game’s placement, but repeated exposure to the brand can make the difference for people confronted with a choice between the company they’ve heard of and the one they haven’t. Either way… this is pretty fricken’ sweet, isn’t it? :)

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)

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