About a year ago, OMD Digital introduced in-game advertising for the first time in the Middle East with the Saudi telco Mobily, opening the way for brands to reach their audience through games, well, it could be unfortunate for consumers who see advertising everywhere, but I guess when it’s done probably within context it’s won’t be annoying at all, specially with product placement.
During GITEX 2009, I attended a presentation by Wael Tawfik, Business Development Manager at Tahadi Games, about the current games offered by Tahadi, and what’s in the pipeline. Basically they work closely with international companies to localize popular games around the world to suit the Middle East, so far they’ve introduced Ragnarok, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) role-playing game based around the ancient Vikings.
I’m not a big fan of games, but I believe that Ragnarok is pretty cool and the ideal solution to anyone who enjoys spending hours playing with others, I used to be one of those gaming geeks in the past but not anymore! But for a marketing perspective I believe it’s a good addition to the media scene in the Middle East, which is still falling behind in terms on online advertising spends with approximately 1% of the total budgets go online, will in-game advertising help in boosting spends on online, who knows!
Worldwide, in-game advertising is already happening, it a multi-million business that is expected to become a multi-billion medium with hundreds of millions around the world hooked up to the games, nothing will stop it from growing, hopefully we will witness this in the Middle East as well. I came across a corner for an Xbox car racing game and I noticed the billboards of Puma and Pirelli on the sides of racing tracks.
The beauty of in-game advertising that it can be anything, it can be a billboard on the side of the road, or a product users use inside the game like a phone or a hat or a drink, it can be an image or a video, so it can br an integral part of the game and users will be engaged with it.
Are Muslims going to take over America? Check out this hilarious attempt by Dean Obeidallah, Aron Kader, and Maysoon Zayid to recruit American Muslims to be able to control America, read more here!
Mercedes-Benz Middle East has announced a photography competition for members of its facebook fan page under the title: “Mercedes-Benz a Fascinating Brand”. So if you like photography, like me, and if love Mercedes-Benz, again like me, you should be part of this competition, what’s better than a Benz to photograph!
Each participant can submit up to 3 photos by November 20th, 2009 in both digital and printed format. You can find more details here! 3 Lucky winners will enjoy a Mercedes-Benz car for a weekend, in addition to some awesome prizes, in addition to the car, the first winner will get a brand new Nikon, the second will get a Benz watch, while the third winners will enjoy the car over the weekend with a Benz cap on their head!
Communicate magazine has announced yesterday the launch of a photography competition with red being the general theme of this competition, and mobile phones the only allowed tool to grab photos. All photos should be submitted to the editor of the magazine, untouched, unphotoshoped, before the 17th of October 2009, more details here!
I came across this banner on facebook and I decided to follow it, and I landed on the website of a new promotion by Head and Shoulders, yet another cool web-based interactive marketing campaign in the Middle East, basically the campaign revolves around things that interest men like cars, sports and women (or as I noticed here “being the star”), anything but dandruff and hair fall. The banner translate into: Is your mind “head” busy with facebook? Take a new profile picture, and yes that’s how I would look like if I had some hair on my head.
The website enables you to upload your picture and to pick the hair cut that suits you, plus the color of course, a fantasy for a bald guy like me The website, or I guess it’s called microsite, feature some other sections like a sports news channel, a studio to have your picture on the finish line of some car race or an event, and garage to create the car of your dreams.
I’m not sure if their facebook application is fully functional or it just links to the website, which is available in both Arabic and English, I really liked this campaign, it’s cool and fresh, but I decided not to share my photo with my friends via email but decided to do it here on my blog, after all imagine opening your email to find my photo Take a look!
It’s good to see more brands in the Middle East adopting social media in their communications, here is a good example from my favorite car brand; Mercedes Benz! Their Middle Eastern facebook page was created couple of months ago and attracted more than 3,600 fans so far, good but I was expecting more for such a legendary brand, anyway I’m pretty sure it will grow over time.
UPDATE: I just discovered that they are also on twitter! Pretty cool! tweet tweet Benz! =)
The page is packed with videos, photos and news about the 130-year old automotive giant, and yes, I realized that I could use a good source of news, Benz is going green with the F-Cell and E-Cell, it’s about time that car makers push towards more eco-friendly vehicles.
Frankly I’m surprised to see so many new models being rolled-out like the new super car SLS, which is supposed to replace the SLR, hmmmm, the SLS is really amazing, but personally I don’t think it’s as amazing as the SLR, that car is something else, but I guess it’s the time to release a brand new model.
Here is some history, this is how Mercedes Benz logo looked like throughout the years:
Take a 
