Should Lowe’s Be Targeting Gamers?

In a push to reach a younger, digital-first audience, Lowe’s announced a partnership with EA Sports that will see the home improvement chain tap branding opportunities within several sports gaming titles, including EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, and College Football 26.

Building on Lowe’s NFL sponsorship, the partnership features:

• In-game product placement: In EA Sports College Football 26, Lowe’s will be featured on the broadcast overlay of the “Stadium Pulse” meter, which measures the crowd’s noise and causes distractions for the opposing team, such as the screen shaking and making it hard to read plays in the huddle. Lowe’s said the meter draws “meaningful parallels to the passion homeowners feel when enhancing their own spaces with Lowe’s.”
• Rewards tie-in: Future titles of EA Sports FC, its soccer franchise, and Madden NFL will enable gamers to partake in “Ultimate Team challenges” to earn in-game rewards based on their play tied to MyLowe’s Rewards, the chain’s loyalty platform.
• In-person events: Later this year, Lowe’s will launch an “On the Road” tour tied to Madden NFL, delivering an in-person gaming experience.

In its statement, Lowe’s said the program enables the retailer to reach “digitally savvy audiences in their areas of interest earlier, more frequently and in a native way, thus establishing true connections with the next generation of loyal Lowe’s fans.”

In-game advertising is being touted as a growth opportunity, as eMarketer finds roughly 57% of the U.S. population will be digital gamers in 2025, including 73.8% of Gen Zers and 65.5% of millennials. Gaming experiences range from mobile games like Candy Crush or Wordle to traditional console games like Call of Duty, virtual environments like Roblox and Fortnite, and the Amazon-owned Twitch live-streaming platform.

Brands appearing on digital billboards in a sports stadium or on a player’s jersey arguably add realism to the game. For marketers, some passive ingestion at least comes from in-game ads as gamers’ eyes are glued to the screen, while social media ads can be quickly scrolled through.

Digiday wrote, “Advertising in mobile games (and gaming in general) is a much less cluttered environment than other avenues marketers turn to, such as CTV, social media and display. Essentially, video is video, no matter where it appears. When it’s within mobile games, it’s a brand-safe space where advertisers can choose the genre and target the audience that best works for them.”

A new report from game developer Zynga, based on a survey of over 2,000 mobile gamers, found that 49% became aware of a new product through an in-game ad, 43% indicated an in-game ad led them to research a new product, and 27% purchased something new because of an ad they saw while playing.

As with many mediums, however, the ads are increasingly annoying gamers.

eMarketer found that interstitial ads, or full-screen advertisements displayed during natural breaks in a user’s experience — such as between levels in a game — are often skipped by gamers, but opt-in video ads “that offer an incentive to click, like an in-game reward, can succeed, but it depends on how valuable the reward is.”