Advertising

Women dominate mobile phone gaming

By Mike Hanlon

June 30, 2006 As personal computer and mobile telephones have become ubiquitous, there have been few surprises in the way the cookies have crumbled, but one that seems to fly completely in the face of logic is the attraction that the female gender has for computer games. Women represent 59% of all U.S. consumers who play games on a mobile phone and these findings concur with the overall demographic makeup of Internet gamers, where women are the majority due to their penchant for online trivia and card games. Men, on the other hand, hold the majority among gamers who play intense action and role-playing games, and there is not a comparable group of male users in the mobile gaming space. A new research study entitled "Electronic Gaming in the Digital Home" concludes that women are the foundation of the gaming market, and the industry needs to cater to their preferences. John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates believes, "Women generally spend little on gaming even though they like to play games … the industry just needs to find a game they are will to pay for." Read More

Advertising veterans to pioneer New Media Model for advertisers in Europe

By Mike Hanlon

June 23, 2006 Now here’s a concept that just might work. Using the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival as the backdrop, Holland’s Spotzer Media Group announced a ready-to-air concept for video commercials. Spotzer intends to pioneer this radical new approach to video advertising that will enable clients to rent and run a professionally designed and produced advertisement for as little as Euro 500. Videos can be personalised for the client by Spotzer, create a media plan online and actually purchase and book air or media time on-line or have the video commercials prepared for use with websites, narrow casting networks, cell phones and other mobile devices such as mp3 players. It's not an entirely new concept, as our colleague the Red Ferret points out, with SpotRunner having launched in the US earlier this year. Read More

Gyroscopic Motion Tracking Controller for PCs and Consoles

By Mike Hanlon

June 13, 2006 The evolution of the computer human interface will take a step forward next month with the release of a Gyroscopic Gamepad. eDimensional already manufactures a number of innovative gaming accessories using technologies such as 3D, motion tracking, audio and voice recognition so it’s not surprising the company has added another interesting interface. With proprietary VRMS (Virtual Reality Motion Sensing) technology, the G-Pad Pro delivers a next generation gaming experience to current model Playstation 2 consoles and PCs. Using a 12 button analog configuration, the G-Pad Pro adds intuitive and precise motion sensing technology to improve gameplay performance in virtually any genre of gaming. Rotate the controller on multiple axes to gain four additional control options in three dimensional space. The result is advanced new movement functions and a smoother, more dynamic ability to control in-game action. Additionally, users may experience decreased hand fatigue compared to standard keyboards or controllers. Now, what can we do with this for non-gamers? Read More

Internet ad revenues continue to soar

By Mike Hanlon

June 1, 2006 Take a look at the adjoining graph and you can see the bite which resulted from the infamous “tech-wreck” and the bullishness of the advertising market ever since. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) yesterday announced that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of US$3.9 billion for the first quarter of 2006, a 38 percent increase over Q1 2005 and a 6 percent increase over the traditionally strong fourth quarter figure for 2005. The continued growth of the internet is reshaping the media landscape – in the last three years internet ad revenues have surpassed cinema, outdoor, radio and magazine advertising revenues. Read More

The Digital Ink billboard

By Mike Hanlon

May 19, 2006 The coming of digital paper seemed to take forever, but now that it’s here, we’ve seen a veritable explosion of products such as clocks, watches, rollable displays, and more recently, the holy grail we’ve all awaited since we could conceive the possibility, the digital book (the Sony Reader and iRex Iliad). But wait, there’s more! There's another very promising high res, low power display emerging and we’re about to see magink's proprietary digital ink technology used on billboards. Global outdoor advertising company JCDecaux appropriately premiered the new generation of high resolution magink-based digital billboards at the 59th Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday. The magink digital ink billboards are installed at multiple highly trafficked venues in Cannes, including one located adjacent to the Palais des Festivals, the official home of the Cannes Film Festival. The new displays will feature an array of full-motion video advertisements and information on the City of Cannes. The digital ink technology offers full-color, full-motion, high resolution and high contrast images that use ambient light to enhance image quality and visibility -- just like ink on paper.

Beyond the world of billboard advertising, magink will also be used with other display applications such as consumer electronic products, in-store point-of-purchase, and promotional displays. Portable devices such as PDA's and mobiles in particular will benefit from the low power consumption offered by magink. Nearly three years ago when we first wrote about magink, CEO Ran Poliakine told us, "magink could take the place of every screen based technology across the board" said Poliakine, "not just e-books where you can download newspapers, magazines and eventually video into a conventional 'book' format, but wallpaper, exterior building facades and countless other applications". Read More

Motorola re-defines playtime with Video Gaming Headset

By Mike Hanlon

May 11, 2006 With the world’s largest electronic entertainment expo (E3) opening overnight, there’s some exciting new products appearing on the radar over the next few days. One that we think has long-term merit perhaps beyond the realm of gaming, is the Gaming Headset X205 from Motorola. The X205 has a noise-cancelling microphone that supports clear voice recognition commands, a premium quality mono ear cup so users can easily communicate with others in the room, an ergonomic design to minimise the discomfort after endless hours in the saddle and inline mute and volume controls for seamless sound management. Read More

BodyPad: new game controller represents another step in the evolution of the CHI

By Mike Hanlon

May 12, 2006 You don’t need a degree in ergonomic engineering to realise that the Computer Human Interface (CHI) is still in its infancy. The QWERTY keyboard was designed 150 years ago, shaped by all the wrong reasons, and still masquerades as high tech when it is indeed a dinosaur. Ironically, it has been given an indefinite stay of execution thanks to the invention of the mouse, the lack of an obvious successor and a curious human resistance to change. Promising technologies such as handwriting recognition and voice recognition cried “ready” a few too many times before they really were and damaged consumer trust and … let’s just say that when we find a better way, we’re looking forward to a ceremonial burning of the keyboard. Logically, the computer can be interfaced with the human in many ways, and the BodyPad is a perfect example, as it turns body movements into computer inputs, effectively turning the human body into a Gamepad! BodyPad is a motion sensor game controller that works with Sony's Playstation 1 & 2 and Microsoft's XBox. Though it’s compatible with almost every existing video game, it’s ideal for fighting, dance games, and some sports games too! Indeed, a bit further down the track, we can see the BodyPad teaching us how to dance, box, throw a baseball, shoot a basketball or kick a football. Read More

Flying Billboard with wireless interactive marketing system

By Mike Hanlon

May 3, 2006 As the world of advertising continues to embrace new technologies, we will see some wonderous and compelling new ways to meet people who are selling what we need when we need it. Last week at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas American Blimp Corporation’s Lightship/Lightsign subsidiary unveiled a new advertising platform of sheer genius. We’ve seen a few media concepts of great foresight of recent times, but this promises the hamburger with the lot to advertisers. The A-170 Video Lightsign airship marks a new era of outdoor advertising, one that has been long heralded by scifi writers – flying electronic billboards. It has a high quality colour LED screen measuring 30' X 70' that can be used to broadcast live TV, Internet sites, stock tickers, slide shows or any other media. Indeed, the Lightsign has been designed with such an array of technologies in mind, that it’s really more an integrated marketing medium than an outdoor medium utilizing GPS tracking (changing the message to suit the audience below and the time of day), two-way communication with customers, text messaging and phone tie-ins. Modern materials and technologies now offer what was previously an almost cost prohibitive promotional platform into a very cost-effective, completely portable arsenal of sticky and very effective marketing technologies to target a mass audience or select demographic or any captive audience! Mark our words – this is big! Read More

Shocking Arm Wrestling

By Mike Hanlon

April 25, 2006 Given that it’s the most obvious way in which two males can exercise their testosterone without outright violence, arm wrestling probably predates all other sporting contests. It is known to have been a common way to while away the hours for Rome’s all-conquering armies and depictions of arm wrestling have been found on the walls of Egyptian tombs, though we suspect that informal contests predates those historical notations my ten of thousands of years. Which is why we think this high-tech update of the game deserves mention. It’s arm wrestling with an electric shock for the loser. The contestants wear elbow pads and gloves, and when the circuit is completed by the back of a losers hand touching the pad, they get an electric shock! Here’s something bound to appeal to all those perverse natures out there. Latestbuy seems to have a wide range of games in which the loser gets shocked – quite literally. Apart from arm wrestling, you can also inflict pain on your opponent by dueling with Laser Guns, remote control Battle Tanks and a game designed to pit your reaction time against your opponent, Lightning Reaction Xtreme. There’s even a memory game like the one’s you probably played as a kid. Well, Shocking Memory is kinda like that! Read More

Celebrity gaming meets reality TV

By Mike Hanlon

April 19, 2006 The internet continues to radically change the world of media and cross-media fertilisation continues to develop even more potent mixtures of compelling, targeted entertainment. Games are now a part of mainstream global entertainment, with professional gamers and teams gaining celebrity status and six figure incomes. Similarly, reality television is now an established winner as networks attract massive audiences of vicarious thrill-seekers by getting low- or no-paid nobodies to bare their all in the hope of becoming highly-paid somebodies. Mix it all together and put it on the web as high-resolution video that users can stream to their computer and you have the makings of yet another new high-appeal hybrid genre that raises the profile of all concerned. And so it came to pass that video game publisher Ubisoft, which sponsors an all-women gaming team known as the Frag Dolls, has partnered with MTV’s GameTrailers.com site to produce five weekly online-only episodes about the recruitment of the newest team member. The first episode premieres today. Would we be a trifle cynical to note that all eight candidates, not to mention the incumbent FragDolls in their entirety are unrepresentatively attractive? Read More

Internet advertising growth

By Mike Hanlon

April 15, 2006 When the US sneezes, the world catches cold, and in no area is the US more a leader than in media technology and trends. Which augers well for the internet economy with the release of the full 2005 year Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the advertising intelligence service of Nielsen Media Research.. Advertising spending for 2005 rose 4.2% over 2004. Advertising spending increased in many reported media, led by Internet (23.3% gain), National Spanish-Language TV (16.9%) and Cable TV 11%). Local (10.1%) and National Consumer Magazine advertising (6.7%) continued to rebound with healthy gains in 2005 and outdoor media put on a healthy 7.3% gain. Read More

Videogame Industry Icons Honored with Stars on Walk of Game

By Mike Hanlon

March 21, 2006 The game industry continues to grow and with an entire generation now having been raised on games, it is a legitimate and burgeoning part of our culture. Which makes it worthwhile honouring the people who have played a role in the industry’s formative years. Sony Entertainment’s Metreon centre is a 350,000 square-foot entertainment complexlocated in the heart of downtown San Francisco that was opened 18 months ago. Last year Metreon launched the video game industry’s version of the “walk of fame” to commemorate some of pop culture's most indelible icons of the digital screen. Last year the inaugural inductees were Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of “Mario Brothers” and “Donkey Kong”) and Nolan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari and “Pong”), in the Lifetime Achievement category, and Halo, Link (The Legend of Zelda), Mario, and Sonic The Hedgehog in the category for favorite Games/Characters. This year fans have voted in six new inductees and all were on hand to claim their stars on the “walk of game.” They were Sid Meier (creator of Civilization, Railroad Tycoon and Pirates) and John Carmack (Technical Director, id Software - developers of DOOM and QUAKE) for Lifetime Achievement, and Lara Croft (Tomb Raider), StarCraft, FINAL FANTASY and EverQuest as favorite Games/Characters. Read More

First SLI Laptop announcement near

By Mike Hanlon

February 25, 2006 Gaming computer specialist Widow PC is set to announce the world’s first SLI-equipped gaming notebook in conjunction with nVidia, the developers of SLI. SLI takes advantage of the increased bandwidth of the bi-directional PCI Express bus architecture and uses multiple Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to deliver up to twice the graphical performance of a single GPU configuration for an unparalleled gaming experience. The new notebook is to be called the Sting 919 and will come with a19in fast-response display and two of the latest 7800 series GPUs. nVidia and Dell showed the first-ever Quad-SLI PC at CES this year. Taking its acclaimed SLI technology to the next level, NVIDIA introduced support for FOUR GPUs. A Quad-SLI PC will enable games to be run at 2560x1600 resolution with silky smooth frame rates. In addition, support for a new 32x antialiasing mode and 16x anisotropic filtering enables stunning visuals. Read More

The World’s First sports academy for Competitive PC Gaming

By Mike Hanlon

February 26, 2006 VIA Technologies has set up what is in effect, the first sports academy for computer gamers when it recently launched the girlz 0f destruction gaming house in Sweden. Dubbed the “Home of Chrome” after the Hi-Def Chrome computer hardware provided by VIA and S3 Graphics, the year-round eSports training house provides both professional and amateur gamers with a unique opportunity to improve their competitive gaming skills in a focused environment. One of the largest and fastest growing entertainment markets with global sales of around US$20 billion last year, PC gaming is becoming increasingly competitive around the world, with the growing recognition of eSports reflected in escalating tournament prizes, such as the US$150,000 purse at the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) finals. The Home of Chrome is a strategic move to facilitate intensive training for competitive PC gamers to hone their skills and practice with the best. Read More

The temporary physical Virtual Store

By Mike Hanlon

February 14, 2006 We’ve been hearing about the virtual store for many years now, with the hype growing to a crescendo during the first coming of the internet, and peaking just before the tech wreck. Since then, e-commerce has been growing steadily towards inevitable dominance at some point in the distant future. A spectacular initiative from American department store retailing institution J. C. Penney yesterday might cause everybody to rethink how e-commerce and the future of retailing might unfold though. The company will construct a 15, 000-square-foot physical manifestation of the virtual store at One Times Square on the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway, New York. In our humble opinion, the opening of this temporary virtual store from March 3-26, in which shoppers can purchase the company's full range of merchandise at interactive kiosks, marks a significant development in the history of retail. We believe that traveling virtual superstores could be a part of retailing’s future. Read More

CES 2006: Entertaible combines excitement of electronic gaming with traditional board games

By Mike Hanlon

January 7, 2006 – Philips Electronics has unveiled a tabletop gaming platform that marries traditional multi-player board and computer games in a uniquely simple and intuitive way, at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The prototype, known as Entertaible, allows the players to sit around a table and play a new class of electronic game, combining the features of computer gaming – such as dynamic playing fields and gaming levels, with the social interaction and tangible playing pieces – such as pawns and dies – of traditional board games. Entertaible owes its name to the social entertainment experience it encourages and the tabletop form factor it is built upon. Read More

Ingenious magazine on a bottle

By Mike Hanlon

UPDATED IMAGES January 21, 2006 The media mix is about to have a new and very viable form of print publishing – on-product magazines will hit the market for the first time in early 2006 and we suspect this innovation is capable of changing the world of print media as we know it. The concept of on-product magazines first came to Joanna Wojtalik while she was studying in the final year of a marketing course just two years ago. The idea was simple – create a small (in the first instance this will be an A7 - 74 x 105 mm) magazine which fits onto a fast moving consumer product and distribute via grocery rather than traditional magazine channels. Joanna’s idea is now patented and will launch in January as the first on-product magazine - a bottled water aimed at the female market with iLove magazine attached and will be joined in Q2 by a magazine for children and a magazine aimed at men on Iced Coffee. Distribution will be focused through convenience stores, supermarkets and gas stations, significantly differentiating the products that carry them and offering advertisers a circulation far in excess of magazines sold through traditional magazine distribution channels. By March, iLove magazine will be the largest circulation magazine in Australia and the company has global aspirations, holding patents for on-product magazines attached to all common food packaging formats. Read More

Networked gaming to show the way for networked economy

By Mike Hanlon

December 15, 2005 With two billion plus cell phone users and a billion internet connections, the global networked economy is beginning to emerge globally as an immensely powerful medium. Not surprisingly, some markets are showing more promise than others and networked gaming looks like one of the most likely to succeed. Revenues from U.S. online gaming services will increase from $1.1 billion in 2005 to more than $3.5 billion in 2009, according to "Networked Gaming Driving the Future," a new report from Parks Associates. Networked gaming services, including online console gaming, massively multiplayer online gaming (MMOG), multiplayer Internet gaming, and mobile multiplayer gaming, will account for almost 50% of online gaming revenues in 2009, followed by digital downloads at 23%. Over the next four years, the gaming industry will no longer depend solely on retail sales but will see more balanced and diversified business models. Read More

Innovative Digital Display Mat creates New Advertising Medium

By Mike Hanlon

November 23, 2005 The IntelliMat is a wireless computer embedded in a very thin mat made of a lightweight thermoplastic alloy with four LCD screens, creating a 30-inch diagonal display with full multi-media capability. IntelliMat is 1.5cm thick and designed to be used on the floor in retail environments to deliver multimedia and TV-quality advertisements with the potential to interact with customers. Most appealing about the IntelliMat is that it delivers these messages to consumers in environments where wall space is limited or in front of products where consumers are in a position to buy. Read More

Guitar Hero Game expected to be an instant best-seller

By Mike Hanlon

November 9, 2005 Now we don’t often do games but this was worth a mention. This is a new game we think will be HUGE, partly because the installed base of PlayStation2 is close to 100 million units, and partly because there are few boys on the planet who haven't dreamt at some point about becoming one of the high priests of the 21st century, the guitar hero! Launched today across America the rock 'n roll guitar video game is called Guitar Hero and is exclusive to the PlayStation2. Guitar Hero combines addictive game play with some of the greatest rock songs of all-time and lets gamers experience the thrill and excitement of being a rock star without leaving home! By pressing down on the fret buttons of a specially designed guitar controller, gamers play notes and chords by strumming in time on a "strum bar" representing the strings of an electric guitar. Guitar Hero features hits spanning all the facets of rock music, from classic rock to metal including tracks made famous by such legendary artists as Boston, Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Bowie, Sum 41, Ozzy Osbourne, Audioslave, White Zombie, Franz Ferdinand and The Ramones. Read More

First-Ever Global Outdoor Advertising Campaign

By Mike Hanlon

October 28, 2005 The first-ever global outdoor advertising campaign, was announced today - a global HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in conjunction with UNICEF. The powerful image that will be seen in more than 50 countries on six continents was also unveiled - a hand-drawn family portrait of a young girl standing beside the graves of her mother and father. The campaign hopes to raise global awareness of the need to help the world's children who are affected and infected by HIV and AIDS Read More

Internet advertising continues to boom

By Mike Hanlon

October 28, 2005 The Internet juggernaut continues to roll and gather pace as evidenced by the 26% growth of Advertising Revenues for the first six months of 2005 over the first half of 2004. Internet advertising revenues for the first six months of 2005 were approximately US$5.8 billion, a new record. Similarly, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is continuing to grow with an Australian chapter today being added to the existing 17 countries and pending IABs in Russia, Columbia and Brazil. Read More

Product Placement: stealth advertising

By Mike Hanlon

October 6, 2005 Product Placement is set to be on the agenda of many advertising and marketing discussions over the next few months thanks to the release of a new report detailing extraordinary growth over recent times in the at best, questionable practice. Movies were the first to do it, but recently television has embraced the new revenue streams - the value of US television placements grew 46.4% to US$1.87 billion in 2004. If you weren’t aware of the depth of the relationship between film, TV and the marketers of the world, this article entitled Why Product Placement Works by advertising psychologist Dr Max Sutherland covers the topic exceptionally well. Product placement is booming – the first-ever report on the size and structure of the product placement market says the total value of the Product Placement Market grew 30% in 2004 to reach US$3.46 billion. Now reports in respectable journals such as the the New York Times and International Herald Tribune are beginning to bring the insidiousness of the practice to the publicattention. Read More

Innovative 3 in 1 game peripheral and office chair

By Mike Hanlon

September 22, 2005 Some of the most beautiful automobiles in history have come from the Turin area of Italy so it’s fitting that this quite innovative racing cockpit peripheral for PC and games platforms such as Sony’s PS2 should emanate from Turin-based design consultancy MoveTech. The basic idea is that the solidly built and fully adjustable GTC COCKPIT transforms into a beautiful leather-covered office chair and the frame transforms into a TV stand. We’re not so sure about the TV stand idea but the office chair offers all the same adjustability as an upmarket chair and at 350 Euro, it seems a genuine bargain. Read More

Nintendo reveals new controller for Revolution game platform

By Mike Hanlon

September 16, 2005 Nintendo will break with more than 20 years of video game history by abandoning the traditional controller held with two hands and introducing an all-new freehand-style unit held with one hand for the next generation Revolution game console. Nintendo claims the new pioneering interface is highly intuitive and will allow players to run, jump, shoot, steer, kick and score far better than with the previous controller. Unveiled in his speech today at the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said, "the feeling is so natural and real, as soon as players use the controller, their minds will spin with the possibilities of how this will change gaming as we know it today." Read More