Interactive games in social media 'good for online marketing'

Advertisements that are incorporated into games on social networking sites have better click-through rates than those simply placed as banners on pages, it has been claimed. Sonya Chawler, managing director of advertising at Slide, told the Times that users "don't respond well to ads pushed into their [personal] environments" as banners. The newspaper reported one estimate of online marketing trends that click-through rates on ads included in games on sites such as Facebook are, at one per cent, 20 times higher than those in banners. It also cited a Forrester report that predicts total expenditure on "interactive marketing" to more than triple from its current £9.1 billion by 2012. According to the paper, Disney has commissioned a Facebook application for its new film Wall-E, while Warner Bros commissioned one to promote its new Batman film, The Dark Knight, which lets users alter their photos. Hollywood actor Ben Stiller has also given his permission for his image to be used in a Facebook game named after his new film Tropic Thunder. Last month, the Internet Advertising Bureau found that 62 per cent of consumers preferred computer games to have in-game advertising as it heightened the experience.