Is it better for advertisements to be inconspicuous now? Session report introducing the 'Lies” of Smartphone Game Market held again this year [CEDEC 2024]

At the game developer conference CEDEC 2024, a session by Masaaki Iakado, Marketing Director of Applibot's Global Partner Division, ``Why do we who make games shout out the lies of game marketing?'' was held. I would like to report on a session in which a number of shocking facts were introduced one after another for those who don't know much about marketing and advertising.

Mr. Kamon, who held a session on the same theme at CEDEC last year, began by saying, ``I wanted to create a positive atmosphere and change the smartphone game industry, but things haven't changed yet.'' He asked not only the marketing team but also the development and planning teams to hear about this session.

Mr. Masaaki Iakado

Serious problems occurring in the “smartphone game market” Mr. Kamon first presented data showing that the smartphone game market will be on the decline from 2021 onwards.

The reason for this is that the number of smartphone users has been stagnant in recent years, and the number of smartphone gamers has not increased since then.
Furthermore, it was only until 2014 that the proportion of the smartphone gaming population among the smartphone user population was increasing, and for the past 10 years, the country has been ``reliant on the increase in the smartphone population.''

Mr. Kamon analyzed this situation as ``a mistake in the way the information was delivered to the users.''

There are many different types of marketing, but this session will focus on ``what to tell users'' and ``how to attract users.'' Many people may think that this is the responsibility of the marketing team, but Mr. Kamon says that he would rather the development and planning teams be aware of this issue.

The problem that was introduced was that
``Even if you spend 100 million yen on advertising, you'll probably only get about 30 million yen in power.''



Specific examples include, ``Even though it is measured that 10,000 people have been acquired, the actual number has only increased by 1,000'', ``Even though I stopped advertising, for some reason the number of people acquired does not decrease'', ``Game users are not watching the game. Advertisements are appearing in all kinds of media.''

Mr. Kamon attributed this to "indifference" and "miscommunication with the marketing staff."

Causes of “smartphone game marketing problems”

Why is this happening?
Mr. Kamon said that until a while ago, he thought it was a problem with smartphone apps as a whole, but now he has realized that it is actually a noticeable phenomenon in games.The cause is: Third-party measurement tools are used to measure the results of advertising investment decisions. This is because it is completely dependent on .

There are management screens for stores such as the App Store and Google Play as tools for checking the number of users acquired, but it is said that they are rarely used.

The causes include "large-scale development" and "high degree of difficulty in identifying each individual." With large-scale development, the number of outside members increases, making it difficult to handle confidential information. Additionally, as the distance between the marketing team and development increases, third-party measurement tools are increasingly being used.
In addition, in games where there are many bots and rerolls and no registration of personal information is required, store-compliant numbers tend to be overlooked.

Mr. Kamon prefaces this by saying that while third-party measurement tools themselves are wonderful, it is dangerous to become ``completely dependent on them.'' He explained the reason and introduced specific examples. Broadly speaking, the results of Internet advertising can be divided into two types: users ``install by clicking on an ad'' and ``install after seeing an ad.''
And the ratio is ``clicks: views = 2:98.''



Mr. Kamon said, ``Is this really being watched?'' and presented the following data.

This is a comparison of the store numbers and the numbers from the measurement tool, but the overall number of acquisitions and trends in efficient media are completely different. Mr. Kamon asserted, ``The bottom line is that smartphone advertising has become extremely strange.''

Regarding the earlier question, ``Are they really being seen?'' Mr. Kamon introduced the places where advertisements that are ``seen'' and are achieving results are often displayed. That's the image below.




It's a place at the bottom of the screen that you can't really see, but it's sometimes reported that it's ``effective.''

Why are inconspicuous advertisements so successful? Before revealing the trick, Kamon explained the logic used by the measurement tool.

In Internet advertising, the concept of "last touch" is emphasized. The rule is that the last ad a user interacted with is considered a ``successful ad,'' but in reality this is often not the case.

Regarding the details, Mr. Kamon said, ``I don't remember everything because it's pointless.The important thing here is that it doesn't make any sense.'' He explained that advertising can sometimes be considered to be ``successful.'' Additionally, even in the case of ``installing a game on the recommendation of a friend,'' if an advertisement for the game is displayed on the smartphone screen within a certain period of time before that, it is considered an ``advertisement result.''

Mr. Kamon said, ``Unbeknownst to you, you are receiving the results of advertising.''

In such a situation, it is natural to think that it would be better to just spread advertisements. This is a "measurement logic hack."

Here, the story returns to the ``advertisements that are effective'' mentioned earlier. As mentioned above, if a user somehow interacts with an ad for a game and then installs it within a certain period of time, it becomes an ``advertisement result.'' If it starts with this phrase, it will be longer.

``Watching an advertisement for a long time'' is more accurately written as ``the advertisement is displayed on the screen for a long time.'' In that case, you can see the advantage of the bottom position of the screen.
For example, if an advertisement is displayed on a game's strategy page, if it is in "A" or "B" in the image below, it will be scrolled immediately to see the strategy information, but it will not be like that in C. In other words, C takes longer to display.



Mr. Kamon pointed out this abnormality, saying, ``Nowadays, it is better for advertisements to be inconspicuous.''

As Mr. Iakado said, ``Everyone is becoming a result of advertising without realizing it,'' advertising through hacks is achieving results by exploiting the natural influx of players.

How to solve the problem “just a little bit”

Mr. Kamon said that the first step to resolving this situation is to "have a method for verifying results other than a third party," and asked people to first look at the store's numbers.

As a second step, he encouraged people in the development and planning teams to "take an interest in marketing." Many of the people in charge of marketing already understand the content of this lecture, but they have no choice but to "produce results," saying, "No matter how much I say the right things, management, development teams, and producers won't understand." It is said to be distributing advertisements.
He also declared that it is no good to tell the marketing staff, ``Now that we have secured a large advertising budget, we should focus on Internet advertising, where the effects are easy to measure.'' ``Isn't the method you should choose one that reaches the user?'' he complained.

Due to the rampant hacking, Mr. Kamon lamented that players who spend more money tend to place less importance on banner ads.

Represents the results of Internet advertising in four quadrants. Advertisements aimed at people who searched for "brand keywords" related to the game have suspicious results (there is a high possibility that they already know about the game), so they need to be scrutinized in the same way as "saw the advertisement." About

In conclusion, Mr. Kamon said, ``We made a mistake somewhere, but if you made a mistake, you should just try again.'' ``Currently, it's 30%, but I want to create a world where 100% of the games you create reach the users.'' I want to build it up," he said, ending the session.

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