| Good morning, Marketer, and let’s take gaming seriously. I had a very interesting discussion last week with Jonathan Troughton, co-founder of intrinsic virtual ad platform Frameplay, as well as Cary Tilds, his chief strategy and operations officer, and Zoe Soon, VP, Experience Center at the IAB. The backdrop for the conversation was the sheer size of the gaming audience, numbering some three billion users worldwide. We hear a lot about CTV as the future of advertising, but the CTV audience — while growing — is much smaller. The ability to serve ads appropriate to the context of the game, without interrupting the gaming experience, and with metrics not just for viewability but for user attention, is valuable right now and will be priceless in a full-fledged metaverse environment. Marketing consultant Tim Parkin told me earlier this year that the gaming industry will be ahead of the curve when it comes to the metaverse: “The whole gaming culture is something marketers should really pay attention to,” he said, “because there are many things that will see new, but are just passé to the gaming industry.” Read Tim’s thoughts on the coming metaverse below. Kim Davis
Editorial Director | 