Electronic Arts, the maker of interactive sports gaming favorites like Madden NFL and EA Sports FC, wants to get in on a different kind of contest: winning dollars from advertisers focused on sports.
The videogame giant has launched EA Advertising, a new platform it hopes will lure advertisers who are increasingly putting their marketing money behind traditional sports programming.
“The most passionate sports fans, they’re gamers. And when they game and when they play our games, it fuels their fandom for sport. It’s building new fans for the sport, and it’s really creating this ecosystem,” says Alex Dao, vice president of advertising and sponsorship at EA, during a recent interview. “And so we saw a massive opportunity to start to bring more of those brands that you typically see in a sports environment back into our game,”
EA’s new offer allows marketers to insert specialized pitches directly into game play, whether it be in the form of a sign in the stadium that serves as the environment for the contest or via deeper partnerships. In the recent past, for example, both Lowe’s and Visa have helped to create in-game experiences in EA Sports FC and EA Sports College Football, among other selections. PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew is part of “DEW University,” a fully playable team experience in EA Sports College Football 26.
