GroupM China and InGameAd Interactive forms gaming marketing partnership

The new platform will be branded as ‘GroupM gaming powered by InGameAd’.

IGA was established in 2005 by current CEO Steven Hu. WPP has held a minority stake in it since late 2008. It now has offices in Shanghai and Beijing, and has created online game campaigns for clients including Dove, Magum Ice-cream and Opel.

IGA worked with Maxus for a Uni-President online game at the end of 2010. This new partnership will see IGA providing gaming-related marketing solutions to clients of GroupM media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare.

It will have a dedicated team working with GroupM agencies to work on all gaming related requests for their clients, from coming up with creative ideas, production and delivery of the gaming campaigns, as well as educating clients on the latest trends on social and mobile gaming.

Social gaming is becoming mainstream, particularly among China’s most attractive demographic: urban youth. According to research conducted by GroupM and TNS, nearly one-third of China’s netizens, including a significant proportion of white-collar workers in tier 1 and tier 2 cities, play social games online, spending an average of 4.6 hours per week on games.

“Gaming is an effective way for marketers to create buzz among consumers," said Tony Chen, managing director, GroupM Interaction, "With the InGameAd partnership, GroupM offers advertising clients sophisticated cross-game and cross-social-networking-site ad platform solutions. Targeting across platforms and sites can now be done more effectively and cost-efficiently.”