EA launches its own ad platform as in-game advertising goes mainstream
Updated: Aug 19
Games giant Electronic Arts has launched EA Advertising, a platform that lets marketers negotiate branded content and in-game placements across its EA Sports titles, complete with integrated campaign measurement. Programmatic buying is not supported at launch, but the move lays the groundwork for what could become a significant new advertising channel.
The appeal is a vast, hard-to-reach audience. An estimated 90% of Millennials and Gen Z play video games, making gaming one of the few environments where brands can reach younger consumers at genuine scale — and in a context where they are highly engaged rather than passively scrolling.
From novelty to credibility
In-game advertising has promised more than it has delivered for years, held back by patchy inventory, weak measurement and concerns about disrupting the player experience. A first-party platform from a publisher of EA's size changes that calculation, offering brands a more credible, better-measured route into gaming than the workarounds of the past.
For UK brands targeting younger demographics, it is a channel worth watching closely. As measurement standards mature and programmatic access almost certainly follows, the advertisers who learn how to show up respectfully in games now will be best placed when the format goes mainstream.
The opportunity — and the etiquette
Sport is a natural starting point. EA's football and other sports franchises already feature the kind of stadium hoardings, sponsorships and branded environments that mirror real-world advertising, which makes native brand placements feel authentic rather than intrusive. Done well, a placement in a virtual stadium can be indistinguishable from the sponsorship players see at a real match — an unusually seamless fit between medium and message.
The risk, as ever with gaming, is getting the tone wrong. Players are notoriously protective of their experience and quick to punish brands that interrupt or cheapen it. The advertisers who succeed will be those that treat gaming as its own culture with its own rules, adding to the experience rather than taxing it — much as the best brands learned to do on social platforms a decade ago.
EA Advertising is unlikely to transform media plans overnight; the absence of programmatic buying at launch keeps it a considered, negotiated channel for now. But it is a clear signal that gaming is maturing into a serious advertising medium — and a prompt for forward-looking UK brands to start experimenting before their competitors claim the space.
— Dimitro Cohen, Technology & Ad-Tech Correspondent at Marketing Minute
For marketers, in-game advertising is moving from novelty towards necessity for reaching younger audiences. Start small, learn the environment, and be ready to scale as measurement and programmatic access mature.
Would you invest in in-game advertising to reach younger audiences — or does it still feel too experimental to commit budget?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
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