The mobile gaming industry has many stereotypes created about who plays mobile games. These misconceptions are made by people who lack actual exposure to the industry and who think about what gaming was twenty or thirty years ago. However, a lot has changed. 

Mobile gaming has been evolving dramatically over the past years. Similarly, those who play games today differ from typical players years ago. The mobile gaming industry has grown into one of the largest industries in the world and continues to grow. 

As a result of this change, we are slowly starting to see the misconceptions about the mobile gaming industry go away, but there still is a lot to be discussed to debunk the existing stereotypes. 

One of the fields that has been remarkably growing is mobile in-game advertising; however, its growth is impacted by the misconceptions and stereotypes that still surround the gaming industry. 

Nevertheless, even though more and more advertisers realize the importance of mobile in-game advertising, there still is a tendency to stereotype the gamers and put them into one homogenous bucket. On the other hand, the reality is entirely different – the mobile gaming audience is as diverse as humanity.

Roughly one-third of the Earth’s population – that is 2.6 billion people – played mobile games in 2020. It is evident that today’s gamers are not only nerdy male students but anyone. Therefore, it is safe to assume that almost every brand in the world has an overlapping audience with the gaming audience. 

We have written an article where we debunked the demographic myths of today’s players and proved how diverse the gamers nowadays are. 

Therefore, in this article, we want to address another misconception. It is assumed that mobile in-game advertising best works for English speakers and that advertising for users who speak other languages or belong to different ethnic groups is not possible or is less effective. 

This statement is entirely false as mobile in-game advertising can be highly beneficial for brands targeting multicultural audiences that are multilingual and live anywhere in the world. 

How has Admazing revolutionized advertising to multicultural audiences?

Admazing is a pioneer in mobile game advertising for consumer brands. We know what pain points brands face when it comes to mobile in-game advertising. We also know how frustrating poor advertising placement can be to game players. Therefore, our platform is built with both advertisers and players in mind, and our aim is to assist brands in reaching their target audiences through advertisements in mobile games, without disrupting gaming experiences.

When we built our platform, we understood that gamers have very different characteristics, come from varying backgrounds, speak other languages, and live anywhere in the world. 

For this reason, Admazing leverages on a third-party integration (DMPs) that allows the targeting of mobile games for specific demographics (gender, age group, and others) and interests while players play games. Based on the information obtained, our proprietary technology analyzes and predicts what kinds of ads would be the most relevant to the player.

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This type of targeting is, to a certain extent, similar to any other behavior-based targeting commonly used in digital marketing and social media marketing. 

We also take the language of the game or the mobile phone’s operating system into account. 

A typical scenario in word and trivia games (but can also apply to any game category) is when a user plays a mobile game in his or her native language (for instance, Spanish, Mandarin, or any other). Still, the OS language settings are set in English. What language would be used for advertising?

Another scenario is when a user plays a game in English, but the OS language settings are in a different language. What language would be used for in-game ads’ display?

In both cases, the ads’ targeting would be based on the OS language settings. This logic is used by most advertisers and is a standard in determining one’s primary language. 

Admazing also takes into account contextual targeting. By selecting different games and game categories for different audiences, we are sure to deliver better quality results to our customers. Our system is designed to know what types of games are popular among different ethnicities or social groups. By knowing this, we can ensure higher engagement rates.  

For example, brands that wish to engage with the Hispanic audience in the US could choose to advertise in soccer games (which are very popular among the Hispanics); or brands that want to engage with the Asian communities could advertise in first-person action games. 

This is particularly important in multiethnic countries, such as the USA, where almost 20% of the population is Hispanic, 13% African American, and 6% Asian. It is a very powerful feature for brands that want to target specific ethnic groups within a multicultural country, as these groups are often underserved but have a huge potential in increasing revenue for brands. 

Admazing platform also has the capability of targeting specific groups based on a zip code. So, if specific targeted ethnic groups highly populate certain areas in a city, brands can leverage this feature to engage with them. 

The ability to customize the targeting is essential today because, as earlier mentioned, the gamer demographics are incredibly diverse. Therefore, targeting with one ad in a large area may not bring desired results. Specific and custom targeting within the smaller area may bring a much better result for brands. 

Finally, Admazing has also developed its own ways to gather first-party anonymized data from previous campaigns that have effectively reached different multicultural audiences. By having this information, our AI-powered platform decides what ads would be highly relevant to which types of players. By having a system that also gathers voluntary data from the players, we are more sophisticated that the ads’ targeting will be even more accurate. 

Admazing has countless ways to program and optimize your ads to reach your multiethnic and multilingual consumers. These are just a couple of examples of how Admazing can help brands connect with their audiences.

Final thoughts

A multicultural approach to marketing can open up new opportunities for your business advertising strategy, helping you reach a much broader spectrum of customers.

All types of people play mobile games today. The audience that brands should engage with is not exclusive to the white, English-speaking population. Instead, brands should look at ways to create better-targeted ads that appeal to different demographics and ethnicities. 

All of the earlier mentioned ways to target the audiences were created with the aim to empower brands to reach their diverse target audiences. 

Contrary to traditional marketing practices, mobile in-game marketing also works perfectly in targeting multicultural audiences. As shown above, it is due to its endless targeting capabilities. 

An essential aspect of marketing to a multicultural population is the necessity to establish one-on-one communication with the intended audience. 

Admazing platform allows brands to use their audience’s native language and appeal to them in the most natural way. But not only that – our technology is trained to analyze and select the most relevant audience for your ads’ display, ensuring the highest ROI, and a very high percentage of reach of the target audience. 

Has your brand struggled to connect with its multiethnic consumers? Let us connect your brand with them!