*Carlo Versano*
Brands with an insatiable appetite for marketing on social platforms have a new way to reach engaged users at scale, according to Adam Cohen-Aslatei, vice president of marketing at the Jun Group.
Mobile games and other "utility apps" like dating services are capturing users' attention more than social media , Cohen-Aslatei said, and companies would be wise to shift their advertising priorities, too.
"People report being more focused, more relaxed, and more engaged" while playing games compared with social media, Cohen-Aslatei said Tuesday on Cheddar. Games also have relatively consistent content that is safer for brands than user-generated content that can be controversial, offensive, or worse.
Studies have shown social media can be bad for your [body image](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45006627). It's where teens are turning to try and cope with [depression](https://hopelab.org/reports/pdf/a-national-survey-by-hopelab-and-well-being-trust-2018.pdf). It's rife with [misinformation] (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611806/how-social-media-took-us-from-tahrir-square-to-donald-trump/), [conspiracy theories] (https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-congress-socialmedia/social-media-companies-defend-filtering-practices-before-congress-idUSL1N1UD10Y), and [trolling] (https://variety.com/2018/digital/global/ruby-rose-batwoman-quits-twitter-following-trolling-1202902971/).
By contrast, the gaming environment is "going to be 100 percent brand safe," Cohen-Aslatei said, adding that there are more than 800,000 mobile games for marketers to choose from.
Gaming interfaces also typically involve a full-screen experience that shows ads only when users elect ー what Cohen-Aslatei called a "value exchange" between the brand and consumer.
The rapidly growing gaming market, where more than 200 million Americans play each month, is showing itself to be a place to reach people in a "mental mindset" that's conducive to the messages advertisers want to deliver, Cohen-Aslatei said. He's advising his clients to diversify their ad dollars with an eye toward mobile games.
"You reach people who are really 100 percent interested," he said, increasing the chances they'll move down the "marketing funnel."
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
