Advertisers who want to reach gamers can find them watching streaming television, according to a new report from Samsung Ads.
The report says that not only do gamers watch TV, but they tend to switch back and forth between playing and viewing much more than commonly thought.
Using data from its smart TV sets, Samsung says gamers spent 25% more time watching streaming TV than non gamers.
More to the point, gamers using Samsung devices for gaming watched free ad supported streaming television (FAST) services like Samsung TV Plus at a 25% higher rate than non gamers.
“Gaming and streaming go hand-in-hand,” Justin Fromm, head of insights at Samsung Ads told Broadcasting+Cable.
According to the Entertainment Software Association, 62% of adults over 18 call themselves gamers.
Those gamers look very much like the general audience, but they are actually more avid entertainment viewers, Fromm said.
“A marketer who wants to reach this audience, which can be very elusive, needs to kind of take a holistic approach to their planning. The research demonstrates that you can reach gamers both in CTV streaming as well as in games,” he said.
Rather than engaging in marathons of game playing, more than 65% of gamers said they regularly switch between paying and streaming within an hour with 92% consuming games and entertainment in the same day.
“If you're looking to find gamers in video entertainment content, streaming is the way to do that,” Fromm said. “They are more likely to stream and more likely to stream with ads and more likely to watch FAST channels. They are a voracious kind of audience when it comes to content.”
During the Walt Disney Co.’s earnings call last month CEO Bob Iger said he saw the statistics on how much time people were spending on TV playing games and that spurred him to buy a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games.
But Samsung’s data says those gamers are still consuming a ton of TV content.
Samsung is in unique position when it comes to gamers. Gamers use Samsung phones, Samsung monitors as well as the company’s smart TV sets for gaming. Samsung smart TVs have a gaming hub that lets users play cloud based games without a console.
“Samsung is kind of embedded in gaming lifestyle,” Fromm said.
Samsung Ads also conducted apoll of Samsung Smart TV owners who identified themselves as gamers.
More than two-thirds said they would be open to ad-supported game services, with nearly 40% of total respondents open to a free or discounted cloud gaming service that shows ads in order to offset the cost of games.
Fromm said advertisers looking to reach games should be advertising both in games and on CTV.
“We know that they're kind of doing all of these things at once,” he said. “Advertisers shouldn’t think of these as two separate experiences.”
He added that advertisers have to be thoughtful about the creative they use to reach gamers, whether they’re playing games or watching TV content.
The messaging should be consistent, Fromm said. “You want to make sure you’re not creating a disparate message that can be distracting or confusing for your consumer.”
