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Two years ago, when a student logged in to Reliance mobile service to check his exam results, he received a cheeky SMS with the result display “Pappu pass ho gaya!”

This was followed by a call to action—an invitation to celebrate the moment with a Cadbury Dairy Milk!

The execution made brilliant use of an end user’s experience (happiness at clearing an exam) to integrate it with a brand and later went on to pick a bronze at the Cannes Advertising Festival 2006 for ‘Best use of Internet and new media’.

For years, marketers have been foxed by a problem: how to sneak in a message, without the prospect smelling the rat. Now they have an answer in something called ‘adver-games.’ Even serious categories like financial institutions are opting for the new media, reflecting a broadening of the profile of an average Indian gamer, from 14 something to 35 or above. Add to this, the medium’s potential to be applied across TV, Internet and mobile platforms, and you gradually begin to understand its potential.

Just as films, soaps and other entertainment channels are being exploited for clever or dumb product placements, games, especially single player formats on handsets are becoming a medium of choice for big spenders, simply because of easy portability of a handset and a game’s potential to actively engage the target consumer.

The logic goes: since a consumer elects to engage with a game, she is more receptive to the ad that has been surreptitiously woven into the plot; than if she were to watch it passively on a TV screen. In the latter case, she can easily skip it altogether with a flip of the channel.

“Advergames engage a consumer for two to three minutes, against a 15 second TV commercial,” explains Salil Bhargava, CEO of Jump Games, a Reliance Entertainment venture, that has tied-up with Manchester United and recently acquired licences from Deepak Chopra promoted Virgin Comics, besides Fido Dido for developing advergaming content for their brands.

“Nearly 50% of the gaming revenue now comes from advergame/ingame promotions,” admits Leroy Alvares, country head, Tribal DDB India, the digital arm of Mudra Group. “With MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) coming in, we can hope to see 100% growth in the industry,” he remarks.