Competing for customers is harder than ever in the quick-serve and fast casual categories, thanks to more choices, economic pressures, and the added competition of delivery apps. Fighting to stay top-of-mind means that QSR brands have to meet customers where they are—and increasingly, those customers are playing mobile games.
Games and food: the ultimate combo meal
Gaming is one of the most pervasive forms of entertainment globally, with around 3 billion players crushing candy or surfing subways regularly. Like social media, mobile gaming reaches audiences of all ages, demographics, and lifestyles. Unlike social media, people tend to be in a more positive frame of mind while playing games, and they are predisposed to receiving brand messages while they play.
Perhaps surprisingly, mobile gaming is bigger in reach and targeting potential than most media channels available to advertisers today. Let’s put this into some hard and fast facts: For example, mobile gaming title Subway Surfers alone has four times as many active users as Netflix has ad-supported subscribers. Another stat: the entire global podcast listenership at 546 million, is just 15-20 percent of the total global gaming market. And finally, the gaming market generated $185 billion in 2022, more than three times the music and movie industries combined.
A match made in heaven
Gaming, regardless of platform, can provide brands with a canvas to tell their stories and connect with audiences. Mobile gaming has an even greater advantage for QSR brands; because of dynamic advertising and targeting capabilities, you can reach players at the right moment to be top-of-mind when hunger hits.
And these players are the core QSR customer; according to research from Anzu, 41 percent of mobile gamers say they enjoy going to fast food restaurants as a top out-of-home activity; 68 percent have eaten at a fast-food or fast-casual restaurant in the past month, and they are more likely to order from a fast-food restaurant via a delivery app.
For restaurants using delivery apps, their own apps, or encouraging takeout or reservations, advertising in-game allows you to drive your customers to exactly where you want. Push them to your latest promotion, directly to order your food within Uber Eats or Grubhub, or to a map showing their nearest locations.
Getting your in-game ads hot to go
Advertising in-game can build on campaign assets you’re already running elsewhere, whether that’s programmatic display or social media.
- A full range of ad formats – Whether it is a banner, video or in-game audio ad, marketers can experiment with a variety of ad units and adapt existing assets. The key is to choose placements that are not intrusive. Audio ads can be great for this; on the Odeeo platform, click through rates are around 1-1.5 percent compared with sub-1 percent click through rates for banners.
- Scale – Mobile gaming has unrivaled scale outside of only the biggest walled gardens. As different games rise and fall in popularity, companies like Odeeo integrate directly into the most popular games to ensure that ads can reach target audiences at scale
- A great starting point to leverage AI – In-game audio, combined with AI audio ad generation, can be a great way to test generative AI capabilities for your advertising efforts at scale.
A satisfying value meal
In-game advertising is one of the most under-leveraged channels for QSR brands. With an audience of billions that is engaged and receptive to good advertising, it is a new channel on the digital marketing plan that can’t be ignored, and for early adopters a chance to make the biggest brand impact.
Elad Stern is the President and Co-Founder of Odeeo, the in-game audio advertising platform. Based in New York, Elad is a seasoned media executive and entrepreneur, spending over a decade working in mobile gaming and digital advertising with extensive executive experience across programmatic and user acquisition at ironSource.
Founded in 2021 by a pair of ad tech veterans, Odeeo is creating solutions for publishers to unlock the fastest-growing segment of marketing spend, while empowering advertisers to reach mobile audiences at scale.
