IAB creates council for mobile advertising in games

The Internet Advertising Bureau has announced that it is setting up a mobile advertising body just for games. The IAB will create the Game Advertising Council with mobile gaming industry partners. The Council will be looking at standards and research

This launch follows the creation of a similar body in the US. Evidently people thought it was such a good idea that UK companies requested an English equivalent. The body will include game publishers, developers and tech providers, along with senior executives from UK mobile gaming agencies.

The stated objective of the body (so far) are:
- to check if the data collected by the US body will be relevant in England
- produce educational materials, events and industry research over the next 12 months.

From the release:

Jack Wallington, senior programmes manager for the IAB and coordinator of the Game Advertising Council said: “Gaming is one of the largest, most immersive and engaging entertainment platforms in the world, yet remains totally misunderstood by a large part of the market. The US gaming industry is thriving, and we’re seeing some strong parallels over here in the UK. With the US gaining universal agreement on their in-game measurement standard, this is just the ticket for advertisers to make even more of game advertising and something we hope to replicate in the UK through our Game Advertising Council.”

What we think?

It’s hard to get through a week without having further proof of the strength of mobile gaming thrown at you. The same could be said about the IAB and mobile internet - the agency has really been investing a lot of time and effort into mobile advertising this year. What can we take from this? Mobile advertising and mobile gaming are both going up, up, up. The conjunction between these two is already huge, and will only become more so.