Xbox Live Hits the Ad Spot

Gamers are an attractive audience for advertisers

Another strength in Xbox Live's advertising offering is that it puts brands in front of the notoriously hard to reach young male. Gamers are, in fact, a particularly attractive audience.

BDRC Continental has conducted three focus groups and a profiling survey of 500 male Xbox 360 online gamers aged 15-34 in the UK, covering demographics, gaming, attitudes and lifestyle. To help put Xbox 360 gamers into context, results were compared with all 15-34 UK males (taken from TGI, a marketing and media survey in Britain).

In terms of their profile, results showed that far from the old stereotype of gamers being 'nerdy', their defining characteristic is their competitive nature, with 72 per cent agreeing that they loved competing against others online.

Highly competitive individuals are less likely to find themselves out of work and the survey found that Xbox 360 gamers are more likely to be in work than 15-34 men as a whole. This means their average income is also considerably higher - online gamers' average personal income is £22,000 as opposed to £14,000 for the average 15-34 year old.

Xbox LIVE gamers also like to spend these earnings on top end ostentatious products. They are significantly more likely to go for premium goods and agree that money is the best measure of success.

The majority of XBL users own a car and over two thirds would be prepared to pay extra for a quality branded electronic product.

In particular they are very likely to spend considerable sums on toiletries and grooming, with 89 per cent using aftershave whilst 74 per cent moisturise. Any stereotypes about badly dressed computer geeks are very wide of the mark. If anything the label of 'metrosexual' seems more appropriate.

In short, as well as being hard-to-reach younger males, many are also what we call 'brand conscious consumers' – that is they are competitive, enjoy winning and like to be seen to have the latest brands and gadgets.

Given the attractiveness of the audience, the positive impact of advertising on users of Xbox LIVE, and the unique potential of the platform for giving users an immersive, rewarding brand experience, advertising on Xbox LIVE looks set to grow.