Over three billion gamers spending two hours daily in virtual worlds represent an untapped marketing frontier most brands have trouble accessing. Traditional marketing approaches often fall flat in gaming environments – where audiences reject inauthentic brand placement and interruptive advertising.

The challenge? Creating authentic gaming integrations requires extensive development time, deep community understanding, and specialized technical expertise across multiple platforms.

“If you’re trying to get new audiences, our data and experience have shown that brands will find them through gaming,” shares Brad Manuel, co-founder of Livewire, an award-winning gaming company that enables major brands to engage with players both in-game and across gaming culture and communities.

He continues, “Your competitors are all advertising on YouTube, TikTok, or Meta, but not all brands are on gaming platforms. Your marketing money actually goes further [in gaming]. You stand out more, and there’s less competition.”

The Integration Hurdle

The path to effective gaming integration, however, is far more complex than traditional digital marketing. 

“When I first worked across social media, we paid influencers for one-off posts, extending reach into new audiences to build brand following and content,” Brad recalls from his early marketing experiences. “But gaming is different. To integrate into some of these games, it can take 3-18 months to allow the development of a game to authentically include a brand.” 

This extended timeline reflects the intricate technical requirements and the critical need for branded integration that enhances rather than disrupts gameplay.

Beyond technical challenges, brands must also navigate distinct gaming communities. “Each game is very different, and the people that play the games are different,” Brad emphasizes. “There isn’t a one-size-fits-all the same way that not everyone likes the same genre of music or the same kind of sport or art.”

Livewire’s Solution: Technical Expertise Meets Cultural Understanding

To address these complex integration challenges, Livewire has developed a sophisticated approach combining technical expertise with deep gaming culture knowledge. 

“One of the pieces of feedback that we get a lot from brands and why I think our business is doing quite well is that we understand our audience and the games, and it feels very native,” Brad explains. “It doesn’t feel like we’re trying to force things in there. It feels like it belongs there, and the feedback from the players is really positive.”

“Many of our staff play or grew up playing games,” Brad adds. “So we also look at things we’re doing as groups and go, ‘Do we like this? Is this something that we would want to see?’ We have that internal box of testing our own ideas.”

The company has developed specialized teams across three continents to handle platform-specific integrations. “We don’t want just to be able to talk to older players or younger players or PC players or mobile players,” Brad notes. “We want to be able to talk to everybody.”

Case Studies: Samsung’s Roblox Integration and Amazon’s “Red One” Launch

Building on this foundation of technical expertise and cultural understanding, Livewire’s new integration work with Samsung into PubG demonstrates how proper gaming integration can transform a brand’s digital presence. 

“We also executed a Samsung UK’s first huge Roblox partnership,” Brad explains. “The results have gone so well that Samsung is  talking about wanting to do  more in gaming.”

“It’s become a case that I think is really good just generally that we’ve worked on,” Brad adds. “It’s awesome to see Livewire’s growth,  I don’t think we thought a business that started as an idea during COVID would bring major brands into those worlds for the first time”

The success of this integration has led to expanded gaming initiatives within Samsung globally, demonstrating how proper execution can transform a brand’s approach to gaming marketing.

For Amazon’s “Red One” movie launch, Livewire created an integration by making Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s character playable inside Roblox. 

Brad reveals this integration required careful coordination between movie assets, game developers, and platform requirements while maintaining authentic gameplay experiences.

Inside Livewire’s Integration Formats

Livewire’s marketing formats are based on a deep understanding of gaming psychology, driving its approach to rewarded video and interactive advertising. The company has thus developed several integration formats:

Rewarded Video: Value Exchange in Gaming

Rewarded video has emerged as one of the most effective formats in gaming marketing. “If you’ve ever played games, you know players run out of lives and need an extra one or a power-up. You’re happy to watch a 15-second video for that,” Brad explains. 

“A TV ad, you get nothing for it. You just sit there or walk off. But for these games, it ensures that people watch the ads because they get something for it. The consumer psychology part of it is really strong.”

Custom In-Game Integrations

Custom integrations, Brad notes, represent the most sophisticated form of brand presence in gaming. The goal is to “organically put a brand inside a game or a gaming environment or a Roblox map or a Fortnite experience in an additive way that players will actually want to engage with.”

He points to examples like Uber Eats deals with EA Sports FC for in-game signage and Virgin Media’s work with Fortnite as benchmarks for successful integration, adding that “the mindset is shifting definitely.”

Platform-Specific Solutions

Each gaming platform demands unique technical and creative approaches. “We did a lot of research last year about the younger consumers, Gen Z, and millennials. They want that integral interaction with things. They don’t like static so much. They want to be able to interact with their environment,” Brad reveals. 

This insight drives Livewire’s development of platform-specific solutions that match user expectations and behaviors.

The success of these formats has led to increasing brand investment. “We’ve seen more and more brands advertise in gaming or around gaming differently,” Brad explains, citing DoorDash as an example, which does multiple [gaming] campaigns every year.

Measuring Integration Success

Success in gaming integration requires new metrics beyond traditional marketing KPIs. “From a brand lift study point of view, brands are looking for an uplift in consumer interest and propensity to purchase,” Brad explains.

He emphasizes that modern gaming marketing measurement focuses on three key areas: right targeting, right timing, and right format. “Most brands want to ensure that they’re targeting the right age group with the right message on the right format at the right time.”

The effectiveness of proper integration has led to measurable results: “Brands come to us and say they see an uptake of net new users or net new purchases that they haven’t seen or tracked across different platforms.”

To support more sophisticated measurements, Livewire is developing new technological capabilities. “We’re building an SSP and a DMP, so we can help our brands access a range of different inventory and partners from websites to mobile to all different things to help them do all that in one spot,” Manuel shares.

What’s Next for Gaming Integration?

Gaming integration continues to break ground with new opportunities emerging. “The industry is allowing more and more user-generated content,” Brad observes, pointing to upcoming developments like GTA 6’s potential for user-created worlds as examples of how brand integration opportunities will expand.

Livewire is positioning itself for these changes through technology development. “We’re building our own products, which we call Gamer AI,” Brad reveals. “We’re building more and more media expertise and technical skill ourselves in terms of what we have internally.”

As Brad notes, Livewire’s success demonstrates that gaming integration requires a fundamental shift in marketing approach. “I’m not advocating that you spend all your money on gaming,” he clarifies. “I’m advocating that your marketing mix includes spending more than 1% across the year.”

The key is viewing gaming as a sustained marketing channel rather than a one-off campaign opportunity. “Gaming becomes an always-on, those plans to reach audiences just generally from an insights point,” Brad concludes.