In-game ads have come a long way over the past decade. Initially, they were basic, static banners that felt out of place in the game environment. These ads were disruptive, easily ignored, and did little to enhance the player’s experience. As gaming environments became more immersive and sophisticated, advertisers experimented with more dynamic placements. However, these early attempts still lacked the seamless integration needed to resonate with players, meaning the ads did not blend naturally into the game environment and often felt forced or out of place.

Today, with the advent of intrinsic in-game advertising, we’ve entered a new era of creative excellence. Ads are now embedded within the game itself, designed to replicate real-world placements like billboards, stadium signage, and building banners. This approach ensures that ads blend seamlessly into the game world, providing a non-intrusive experience while enhancing realism. This evolution marks a significant step forward, allowing advertisers to engage players without disrupting their immersion.

A New Era of Creative Excellence

As gaming continues to grow as a powerful ad channel, we’re constantly refining our understanding of what works and what doesn’t and developing best practices to help advertisers and game developers thrive. The immersive and attention-rich nature of the gaming world demands that creativity be a central focus for advertisers seeking to make a meaningful impact on players.

Creativity is even more critical in this space than in other digital ad formats. Ads must capture attention while blending naturally into the gaming environment — what we call ‘non-disruptive, disruptive ads.’ This delicate balance is the key to success, ensuring that players engage with the content without feeling that their experience has been interrupted.

To help you navigate this evolving landscape, we’ve created this guide packed with creative insights, data-driven best practices, key considerations for the 3D gaming world, and success stories from leading global brands.

What’s covered?

• Understanding The Gaming Environment
• Best Practices For Designing Effective In-Game Creatives
• Success Stories From Getting Creatives Right
• Tailoring Creatives For Specific Audiences
• Creativity In Balance With Player Experience
  
  

Immersion And Context

The 3D environment makes gaming utterly different from anything that has come before. This means advertisers must think carefully and differently about how they run campaigns within gaming compared to other digital advertising environments. There are many more things to consider, like where the player is looking, what angle the ad placement is being viewed at, and whether any objects or characters are moving in front of the ad.

However, unlike other digital advertising channels, gaming also allows advertisers to unleash their creativity and become part of the game, creating a unique experience for their consumers and tapping into the positive emotions they feel and associate when gaming.

One of the most important things to consider from a creative standpoint is that the ads should feel natural and part of the gaming experience. Intrinsic in-game ad placements are strategically built into the gameplay, appearing where you would typically expect to find an ad in real life, like around sports stadiums, on the side of buildings, and alongside race tracks. The ad creatives shown in these placements should add to the realism of the experience rather than detract from it. Here are a few examples of different placements with ad creatives that have been designed to both stand out and, at the same time, look like they belong to the environment.

Here, you can see a great example of an intrinsic in-game ad creative from a Sony campaign to promote their new headphones, shown in the well-known racing mobile game Asphalt 9 from Gameloft.

Here, you can see a series of intrinsic in-game ads around a football stadium from a campaign by the record label EMPIRE to promote their artist Babyface Ray’s new album. The ads are shown in the PC game Axis Football from Axis Games.

Here, you can see several intrinsic in-game ads from the US convenience store Quiktrip, shown around the garage where you can customize your vehicles in the AAA racer Dakar Desert Rally from Saber Interactive.

The above examples demonstrate what’s possible when the ad creatives are designed with the gaming environment in mind.

Understanding the Gamer Mindset: Why Matching the Tone of the Game Matters

Gamers are a unique and highly engaged audience. When playing, they are often fully focused, competitive, and deeply immersed in the virtual worlds around them. Unlike viewers of other media, gamers rarely engage in “second-screen” behavior, where attention is divided. Research from Lumen and Anzu shows that gamers demonstrate some of the highest levels of attention and engagement with content compared to other media formats. This is because, for gamers, the act of playing is active, not passive—every action in the game demands their full focus.

To create successful in-game ads, brands must consider and respect this mindset. Creatives that disrupt the flow of gameplay can jar players out of the immersive experience, causing frustration that results in negative experiences for the player, game, and brand. Instead, ads must align with the tone and feel of the game world. A recent IAS report found that the majority of gamers (69%) prefer ads that do not disrupt gameplay, and they are more receptive to ads that relate closely to the game's content, with 61% indicating a preference for this type of advertising.

Another critical factor to consider is that gamers expect authenticity. Ad creatives that look and feel like real-world placements—such as billboards on a racetrack or signage on city buildings—are more likely to be accepted because they enhance the game's realism. This is really important because when asked what advice they would give to brands when advertising in games, the most popular answer amongst gamers was to keep the ads relevant.

Intrinsic in-game ad creatives should seamlessly blend into the virtual environment, aligning with the game’s tone, style, and pacing to maintain player immersion. Achieving this involves thoughtful design choices, such as using colors and fonts that match the game’s aesthetic, integrating game-inspired characters and backgrounds, and incorporating gaming language and tone into the ad copy. These elements help the ad feel authentic within the game world, ensuring it enhances rather than interrupts the player’s experience.

Device-Specific Considerations: Tailoring Creatives for Mobile, Console, and PC

The gaming experience and how players interact with ads vary significantly across different devices, from mobile to console to PC. Each platform offers unique ad real estate, user behavior, and engagement levels, which should be considered when designing creatives to ensure they resonate with players and enhance, rather than disrupt, their experience.

Mobile: Compact, High-Touch Engagement

Mobile gaming is characterized by shorter, more frequent gaming sessions. Players are often on the go, engaging with games in quick bursts, which presents opportunities and challenges for advertisers. Given the shorter sessions, it’s best to keep your message short and snappy without leaning on long sequential messaging, as the player may not be playing for long enough to grasp it. Due to the smaller screen size, mobile games offer less real estate for ad placements, so creatives must be compact, impactful, and easy to understand. You also can’t afford to have too many elements making up the ad, and the brand must be instantly recognizable.

Console: Immersive, Long-Session Play

Console gaming typically offers longer, more immersive sessions, with players deeply focused on the gaming experience. Consoles' larger screen sizes and higher graphical fidelity allow for more creative storytelling. However, maintaining player immersion can sometimes be challenging, so the ad creatives must work harder to maintain a natural feel. Video can play a more significant role here, not at the expense of display, but the more significant the real estate, the more likely you are to watch it.

PC: Versatile, Multi-Tasking Engagement

PC gaming is highly versatile. Players often use larger monitors and engage in various types of games, from fast-paced shooters to long strategy sessions. Creatives for PC need to reflect the diversity of the gaming experience. Ads can be more intricate and detailed. However, they should still blend seamlessly into the gameplay to maintain immersion.

Comparing IIGA Creatives To OOH

When approaching creatives for IIGA, an easy way to think about them is to create them with OOH in mind or see them as virtual posters, virtual out-of-home (VOOH) if you will. The ads appear in the same locations you would expect in the real world, just on a much smaller scale.

The difference with IIGA is that it can reach a more diverse audience than OOH but be much more targeted. Because it’s in the digital space, these ads can be tailored and served to particular audiences, with the ability to target based on factors like age, gender, and location, just like you can across other digital channels. This means the creatives can and should be adapted depending on your target audience. For more on this, check out our guide to in-game targeting.

Unlike OOH, IIGA also lets you measure and report on the ad’s success. This allows you to better understand what works and what doesn’t and tailor ad creatives to ensure they resonate with the right audiences. For more on this, check out our guide to in-game measurement.

Bringing Best Practices To IIGA

In March 2024, the IAB, with help from Anzu and the wider industry, developed a series of creative best practices for intrinsic in-game advertising. These were published in their Creative Guidelines and Best Practices in Advertising in Gaming report, which combines both tech and visual guidelines.

On top of gaming being a legitimate advertising channel, intrinsic in-game advertising has peculiarities that brands must be aware of and keep in mind. Therefore, advertisers need to follow these guidelines and understand how to create ads specifically for gaming rather than retrofitting an ad and expecting it to work effectively. Imagine taking a bend at 200mph and stopping to watch a 30-second TV commercial inside a racing game or clicking on a banner while attempting to defeat an end boss.

To take these guidelines a step further and prove their efficacy, Anzu scored 55 campaigns from global brands to understand whether past campaigns had adhered to these guidelines, blind to how the campaigns had performed.

These scores were then matched against the brand lift studies of each campaign, which had 15,000+ respondents, to understand which best practices work best at driving different campaign outcomes, depending on where in the funnel you want to drive impact.

This report outlines which creative best practices work well at driving audiences at different levels of the marketing funnel. Based on some of this research, we’ve outlined five tips for intrinsic in-game display ads and intrinsic in-game video ads below.

5 Tips For Making Your Intrinsic In-Game Display Ads Work Harder

1 — Keep it simple

This may be obvious, but gaming is a highly complex environment with many simultaneous events. You must keep your wording and imagery simple and easy to understand, as players will not have time to decipher your message.

2 — Big logo

Don’t be afraid to make your logo stand out. If it’s too small, players will miss it, so find a way to incorporate it into your ad clearly and concisely so that players immediately know who the message is coming from.

3 — Use the 3-second rule

Three seconds is the average time it will take a player to read and process your message. If it takes them longer to decipher what you are trying to say, the ad won’t land. Don’t be afraid to test this out before going live.

4 — 7 words or less

Try to keep your headline concise, conveying your message quickly and effectively. Remember that less is more.5 — If you wouldn’t do it in OOH, don’t do it in-game

As mentioned above, intrinsic in-game ads are similar to OOH because they are non-clickable, are great at driving brand awareness, and are excellent at helping brands stand out, driving massive attention levels. Use them wisely and think of them as OOH in the digital realm.

5 Tips For Making Your Intrinsic In-Game Video Ads Work Harder

1 — Limit the video length

The classic short-form video ad rules apply to in-game, so keep your videos to 6 seconds or less. This helps ensure players can understand your message quickly and digest it as they navigate the gaming world.

2 — The first 3 seconds are crucial

Our report's findings show that in-game ads are viewed for an average of 3.1 seconds, so it’s paramount that you capture attention in the first three seconds. Use dynamic action, a teaser, bold colors, images, objects, or headlines to help.

3 — Place your logo and CTA upfront

Place your logo and CTA in the first few frames so that players quickly understand who you are and what you are trying to tell them. Having a product or brand reveal at the end does not work in the fast-paced gaming environment.

4 — Sound off

In-game video ads do not play sound because it disrupts the gaming experience. This means you need to think even more carefully about the look and feel of your ads. You should also consider if you need to use text or subtitles to help tell the story.

5 — One message

The creative should only contain one message. Avoid complicated narratives or many different scenes because players won’t have the time to decipher them. You also want to avoid distracting gamers from play, so keep it simple.

Sony Brings It’s Inzone Buds

Some brands have embraced in-game advertising, and Sony is an example of a brand that has seen huge success by following these guidelines.

To promote their INZONE Buds, a set of noise-canceling earbuds designed for gamers, Sony launched an intrinsic in-game advertising campaign, working with our creative best practices. We worked with them to design ads that naturally fit into the gaming world and resonated with players. Their creatives clearly showed the new headphones, and they used a combination of bold colors, short and concise messaging, and a clear logo to help their ads stand out to players while naturally feeling part of the gaming environment. The creatives were also tailored to different games and genres to match the look and feel of the gameplay.

Here, you can see a selection of screenshots from Sony’s campaign, which show the ads in Asphalt 9, Super Soccer Star, Cooking Fever, and Nitro Nation.

The campaign went on to achieve:

• 4 million impressions and 10,000 hours of on-screen time
• A 42-point increase in brand image
• A 39-point increase in interest
• A 35-point increase in consideration for the earbuds

Sony’s success perfectly illustrates the power of following the right creative best practices in-game and pairing them with an effective targeting strategy to make meaningful and valuable connections with players.

Tommy Hilfiger Shows Off Its Latest Designs To Players

Moving from consumer electronics to fashion, Tommy Hilfiger is another brand that’s tapped into the vast opportunities that gaming offers. In a recent campaign, its stunning visuals greatly impacted players while enhancing the realism of the environments they were found in. They also went a step further, tailoring the ad creatives to the types of people playing the games and swapping them out throughout the campaign to keep the creatives fresh and exciting, some of which you can see in action below.

To measure campaign success, Anzu partnered with Comscore to produce a brand lift study to unlock insights into gamers' behaviors towards the brand, Oracle MOAT to measure in-game viewability, and IAS to monitor fraud rates.

The campaign went on to achieve:

• 14pt lift in ad recall after exposure
• 20pt lift in brand favorability
• 24pt lift in brand recommendation
• 23pt lift in purchase intent

When asked about the campaign's impact, Tommy Hilfiger’s Senior Director of Media said, “In-game presents us with an environment where our creatives are viewable and in high-impact positions, creating massive attention levels and boosting brand impact and recall. The brand lift study also showed the impact this campaign had on brand favorability, changing the opinion of exposed gamers and driving future consideration of purchase and a higher likelihood of recommending our brand to a friend.”

This is another excellent example of how getting creatives right in-game can significantly impact campaign success, from brand favorability to purchase intent. To learn more about what creative best practices are better at driving audiences at different points in the sales funnel, check out our research and recommendations in The Guide To Creative In-Game Excellence.

1. Design for Gaming First

When creating ads for in-game environments, the primary focus should always be on designing for gaming first. Creatives shouldn’t feel like an afterthought. Gamers expect an immersive, seamless experience, so ads need to align with the gaming environment rather than disrupting it. A well-designed creative integrates into the gameplay and enhances the experience rather than taking the player out of it.

2. Demographic Targeting and Audience Insight

Like any advertising channel, tailoring creatives to specific audiences is essential for maximizing engagement. For younger audiences, like Gen Z and Alpha, dynamic and playful ads that reflect their preferences and values are more likely to grab attention. When you can’t customize at scale, the next best step is ensuring the ads reach the right audience through effective targeting strategies. To better understand what’s possible from a targeting standpoint, take a look at the guide to in-game targeting.

3. Cultural Sensitivity

With over 3.3BN global gamers, ensuring that your ads are culturally relevant to different regions is crucial. Tailoring creatives to local tastes, languages, and values helps build connections and avoid missteps. If a game spans various countries or cultural backgrounds, creatives should resonate with the local audience while maintaining consistency with the overall brand message.

4. Tailor Creatives to Game Genres

Different gaming genres attract different player types; your ads should reflect that. For instance, a fast-paced action game may benefit from energetic, visually striking ads, while a more strategic game might require a more thoughtful, informative approach. Understanding how players interact with specific genres and what moods they will likely be in when they do allows you to tailor your creatives to complement the gameplay and make meaningful connections with them.

5. Plan Ahead with Media Strategy

Your media plan should consider the unique behaviors of gamers. This audience interacts with media differently—both in terms of the time they spend playing and how they engage with content. Align your media plan with peak gaming times, platforms, and game types to maximize the effectiveness of your ads.

6. Immerse Yourself in Gaming Culture

To create successful in-game ads, you need to deeply understand gaming culture. Familiarize yourself with the gaming world's language, icons, and nuances. If you’re not a gamer, take the time to get involved and understand the environment and audience. Just as you wouldn’t create a TV ad without understanding the medium, creating an in-game ad requires firsthand knowledge of the gaming experience.

7. Entertain, Don’t Interrupt

As mentioned throughout this guide, gamers want entertainment, not interruptions. Ads that break the flow of gameplay are likely to generate frustration, but those that entertain or enhance the experience can leave a lasting impression. Focus on building brand awareness and ensuring that your ad is remembered for the right reasons—such as adding value or enjoyment to the game, not hindering the player’s progress.

8. Be Clear with Why You’re Going In-Game

When designing in-game creatives, you must have a clear strategy for what you want the gamer to do after seeing the ad. Whether driving product awareness, encouraging research, or motivating a purchase, your call to action must align with the ad’s content and placement.

Unlike traditional ads, intrinsic in-game ads are not clickable, so you must think even more carefully about what action you want players to take. Gamers are highly focused on the gameplay experience, so your CTA should be simple, clear, and easily remembered, leaving a lasting impression that drives players to act even after they’ve left the game.

The evolution of IIGA has brought us to a point where creativity and player experience must work in harmony. The most effective in-game creatives seamlessly blend into the gaming environment, becoming a natural part of the virtual world rather than an interruption. This balance is the key to success, ensuring ads are engaging while preserving the immersive experience that gamers seek.

Throughout this guide, we’ve emphasized the importance of designing with the game in mind—whether that means tailoring creatives for specific audiences or adjusting them to fit the tone and pace of different game genres. From demographic targeting and cultural sensitivity to platform-specific nuances for mobile, console, and PC, every detail matters. Ads must be simple yet impactful, bold enough to capture attention but subtle enough to feel integral to the gaming landscape.

One of the most crucial aspects of IIGA is relevance. Ads that align with the tone and visual style of the game are far more likely to resonate with players. Brands like Sony and Tommy Hilfiger have demonstrated how well-tailored creatives can drive engagement, boost brand awareness, and ultimately influence purchase intent. These campaigns succeeded because they delivered impactful messaging while respecting the player’s experience within the game.

In summary, success in-game lies in non-disruptive yet impactful creatives that make an impression while still feeling part of the game. Brands that understand gaming culture tailor their ads to the audience and environment, and focus on entertainment rather than interruption will be best positioned to succeed. As the landscape evolves, Anzu remains committed to providing the insights and solutions brands need to unlock the full potential of IIGA.

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Don't hesitate to contact our team if you have any questions or want to learn more about creating successful in-game ads. We’re here to help you unlock the full potential of intrinsic in-game advertising.