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26 Feb 2013

«The advertisement should be the content»

Social Insight – is an independent digital-agency that specializes in marketing communications in social networks and on mobile platforms. It differentiates itself from other contenders by a number of unique advantages. The first advantage is its status of an authorized Facebook partner (FPMD), which permits it to assert its competency in the area of marketing solutions that are based on this particular social network. The second one is - its exclusive distribution right for the integration into the interactive platform NARR8 and Game Insight games. What is a gamification and why a communication through the gaming mechanics works better than through the traditional digital channels, was the subject of the lecture given by the director of the Social Insight agency Andrey Podshibnyak to the students of «Internet industry management» RMA business school program.

«Every person that owns a smart phone or a tablet, is constantly engaged in some kind of gaming. The gaming has long ago become mainstream, as the combined revenues generated by the gaming industry are now larger than that of Hollywood. What does it mean? It means that we are living in the golden age of gaming, in which the gaming mechanics offer substantially better marketing, educational and business communications than the standard mechanisms. Which is exactly the gist of the gamification phenomena, which has only been around since about 2-3 years ago, but has already proven its efficacy and that it's not going away anytime soon.

There is a tiny advertisement agency called Droga5, that in 2012 was recognized as the agency of the year. And that award was by far not their first one of such rank. So this agency's founder David Droga has built his creative laboratory on the following idea: advertisement has to be the content, meaning that the user should be drawn to engage with it in order to achieve a non-material satisfaction. «We are not trying to conceal the fact that we are displaying you an advertisement, – says Droga, – but we think that it deserves your attention».

We very much like this approach, and always try to adapt it in our business practice. To my mind, games precisely fit this paradigm, and can represent a brand using various mechanisms that are highly attractive to the consumer.

At one of the round tables at the recently held Live Mobile! conference, the issue of mobile marketing was hotly debated. And as we have found out, we are still largely sailing the pirate waters so to speak - as almost nobody really understands what that is. Some still believe that it's about sms-messaging campaigns, others argue that it's all about development and promotion of various apps. While the truth is actually somewhere in between. In any case, the mobile technologies will very soon be making a significant splash, and that is something we absolutely have to keep in mind. Overall, in the area of marketing trends, Russia is lagging behind US by about 2-3 years. But if we are talking about the mobile sector, the gap there is getting narrowed significantly faster, and this year will likely present a major turning point. Once we reach that mark, it will be akin to a gold rush, which will definitely be a lot of fun».

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