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PepsiCo’s strategies for marketing via online games and esports

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PepsiCo's strategies for marketing via online games and esports

Marketers have never had more opportunities to break into in-game advertising, due to the growing number of users and the evolving technology for brand placements. PepsiCo has a vast portfolio of beverages and foods, and Paul Mascali, PepsiCo’s head of gaming and esports, has put together a multipronged marketing strategy to connect the right products with the right customers in the right game environments.

“In-game advertising is a highly-engaged instance,” said Mascali. “Attention is fully on the game and not passive, it’s a lived-in experience. The biggest thing is that it’s the right type of integration, and that’s why we’re working with premium publishers to maximize those eyeballs.”

Not every brand is a world-famous soft drink, however. Fortunately, there are many entry points for brands to tap into the highly-engaged gaming community.

Getting started with dynamic in-game advertising

One of the easiest low-cost ways to get started with in-game advertising is also one of the newest – dynamic in-game advertising.

Marketers don’t have to get in early when a video game is being developed in order to claim a spot for brand integration. Instead, game publishers create and sell inventory for advertisers after the game is released.

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Think of all the advertising opportunities during a Formula One race or when you take a walk down a busy street in the real world. Well, in the virtual environment of a video game, those same billboards and car sponsorships can be made available to advertisers, and swapped in and out programmatically in real time.

Read next: How the gaming universe is preparing marketers for the metaverse to come

“Dynamic in-game advertising is more of a turnkey solution for brands who don’t have a strong foothold in games, don’t have bigger budgets and haven’t really leaned in,” said Mascali. “It’s a good way to test the waters.” 

This lets marketers new to gaming test and learn which game environments work best. And they don’t have to commit a lot of their ad budget or time, because adtech vendors like Anzu are making dynamic ads accessible across many game publishers.

Hard-coded in-game advertising

Brands with clout, and the budget to match, can get involved earlier in the development of a (hopefully) blockbuster game, creating a more integrated ad experience. A hard-coded in-game advertising placement means marketers collaborate closely with developers to make the brand an actual part of the game and not just a digital billboard.

In order to pull this off, marketers should already know some of the games and audiences that work for their product.

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For instance, PepsiCo has had a long history in video game integrations, including the NBA 2K series developed by Visual Concepts and played on top consoles, PC and mobile.

In the NBA 2K22 update for the most recent basketball season, the game included the branded GatoradeTraining Facility. Far more than a fleeting ad during gameplay, players could go to this part of the game and consume drinks with their player avatars, thus improving their player’s performance level.

Cross-promotions in-game and on other channels

A popular game’s devoted audience will interact with other audiences, amplifying brand marketing.

That’s why Mascali’s team jumped on the opportunity to create The Dew Court in the NBA 2K game. It is modeled on the real-world three-point contest during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend, which is sponsored by PepsiCo’s MTN DEW.

Having the branded experience consistent between the actual sporting event and the in-game experience adds to the realism of the game for players. And it adds to the brand exposure for PepsiCo. In the game, players shoot three-pointers on the Dew Court and can earn in-game rewards, adding higher stakes and more perks for players.

Similarly, NBA 2K22 also included the 4-Point Ridge Tournament. This experience replicated the Ruffles “four-point line” from the celebrity game at All-Star Weekend. Ruffles is another PepsiCo brand.

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“From our experience, hardcoding is more customized and dials deep into why these consumers play and how we can be additive to their experience,” said Mascali.

Growing e-commerce through games

Traditional retail channels for brands have been disrupted by e-commerce. Consumer packaged goods companies like PepsiCo have adapted by launching their own direct-to-consumer offerings.

When the company launched their first owned portal for a beverage in 2020, gaming was an integral part of the strategy, and continues to be. MTN DEW Game Fuel is a line of beverages designed for gamers. Some flavors are tied to specific games, such as Activision’s Call of Duty Warzone.

Instead of having to run off to the local 7-Eleven, gamers can go to the Game Fuel portal and order drinks. They can also earn rewards through purchasing drinks and other products, making Game Fuel a loyalty program and D2C play.

Game Fuel has also partnered with the Atlanta Faze esports team, bringing exposure to fans who follow esports online and watch broadcasts of league tournaments.

Gaming influencers get deeper in the community

Another of the company’s beverage brands, Rockstar Energy Drink, recently announced a multiyear partnership with gaming organization NRG.

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NRG is a leader in gaming lifestyle content shown on YouTube, Twitch and other video and social hubs where gamers and esports fans can watch masters display their skills on Fortnite, Valorant and other popular game franchises. To give an idea of the scale, NRG-owned channels, which feature top esport figures, have 50 million monthly active users.

The first marketing initiative is a sponsored livestream music experience called SOUND SERIES.

“From our standpoint, these guys and girls are modern day celebrities for this generation,” said Mascali. “With the engagement they get, when we find the right influencer-brand fit, it’s great for us and their communities. When we find the right brand fit, we have them talk about them, and that becomes a powerful marketing avenue for us.”

According to Mascali, every game has its own culture and its own community. Top influencers know these communities the best, so it’s about giving them the creative independence to carry through brand values and enthusiasm to their audience.

Marketers should have a firm grasp of these brand values before approaching game developers, publishers or influencers. Once they do, marketers have a wide array of options to get in quick, say through dynamic in-game ads, or take a more studied and integrated approach through hard-coding, cross-promotion, influencers and e-commerce plays.


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About The Author

Chris Wood draws on over 15 years of reporting experience as a B2B editor and journalist. At DMN, he served as associate editor, offering original analysis on the evolving marketing tech landscape. He has interviewed leaders in tech and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country’s first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on “innovation theater” at Fintech Inn, in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting in industry trades like Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS, and contributes fiction, criticism and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University, and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.

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MARKETING

YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]

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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples

Introduction

With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.

Types of YouTube Ads

Video Ads

  • Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
  • Types:
    • In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
    • Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.

Display Ads

  • Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
  • Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).

Companion Banners

  • Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
  • Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.

YouTube Ad Specs by Type

Skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
    • Action: 15-20 seconds

Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
  • Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1

Bumper Ads

  • Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
  • File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 640 x 360px
    • Vertical: 480 x 360px

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
  • Headline/Description:
    • Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
    • Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line

Display Ads

  • Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
  • Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
  • File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
  • File Size: Max 150KB.
  • Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
  • Logo Specs:
    • Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
    • File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
    • Max Size: 200KB.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
  • File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).

Conclusion

YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!

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Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists

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Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists

Amazon pillows.

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.

To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.

Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots

Salesforce’s evolving architecture

It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?

“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”

Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”

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That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.

“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.

Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”

Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot

“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.

For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”

Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”

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It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”

What’s new about Einstein Personalization

Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?

“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”

Finally, trust

One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.

“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”

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