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Phoenix Marketing International’s Travel and Leisure Division
announced that its Video Game Advertising Performance Index (AdPi)
Audit, conducted in January 2009, showed that Nintendo was the only
videogame publisher whose advertisements in the fourth
 quarter of
2008 earned above average AdPi scores for effectiveness and impact
in all three media categories – print, television, and digital –
studied.
The Phoenix AdPi Audit combines brand performance, advertising
performance, and copy testing. This latest one measured consumers’
reactions to 30 ads that were in-market from October through
December 2008. The ads were from top video game publishers such as
Activision, Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, MTV
Games, Nintendo, Sony and Ubisoft.
The highest-rated ads were:
• For TV, Nintendo’s Wii Music; and Activision’s Call of
Duty: World at War
• For print, Nintendo’s Wii Fit; Disney Interactive’s
Disney Think Fast; and MTV Games’ Rock Band 2
• For digital, Nintendo’s Wii Music; Activision’s Call of
Duty: World at War; and Ubisoft’s The Price is Right
Consumers were asked if they would purchase the game, if the ad was
worth seeing again, and if the ad was inspiring or worth talking
about. AdPi scores show each ad’s strengths and weaknesses, which
were evaluated against the respective ads’ objectives.
 The AdPi
approach factors in actual ad spending to help companies determine
overall in-market ad impact and success.
David Pluchino of Phoenix Marketing International’s Travel and
Leisure Practice pointed out that high ad spends did not always
translate into significant increases in purchase consideration.
Spending levels in the media categories varied widely. Television ad
budgets evaluated ranged from $1.4 million to $7.3 million. Print
budgets ran from $200 thousand to $1.4 million.
“As we all know, significant resources are required to develop
advertising in the competitive videogame software market. Our AdPi
Audit allows a publisher to test ads before spending of millions on
media buys,” said Pluchino.
“In today’s economic climate of layoffs and studio closings, it
imperative to understand how well your advertising is performing,
both for your own videogames and relative to other competitive games
in the market,” he added. | 
