Video Game Advertising

A couple of weeks ago my Marketing professor brought up a very good topic that I hadn't really given much thought to: video game advertising. Social media has been such a huge part of the millennial generation that I never thought of where it started and how it was exactly tapped into. According to multiple advertising specialists, the world of advertising in social media was rushed into way too quickly. A few companies started advertising in video games and then all of a sudden everybody was doing it...and apparently doing it all wrong. Do people honestly pay attention to the background ads that are in these video games? In my opinion, it just seems to turn into noise. The appropriate way to advertise in these games is to make it interactive, just like the internet. You have to actually have your brand be the main sponsor of the game or it just seems pointless. Burger King did a great job of this with their "King Sneak" Xbox game. The actual Burger King Character is one of the players in the game which makes it extremely interactive and entertaining to the consumer. Also, it is subliminally advertising to the consumer without them even really realizing it which means their "advertising guard" probably isn't up. This is basically product placement on crack, but it seems to work. Here are some examples of the typical video game ads verses the Burger King ad....which do you think is more effective?