Wednesday, January 4 3:50 PM - 5:00 PM Track II - GP10: Advertising and Games: From In-Game Advertising to Cross Promotional & Custom Brand Extension As the games industry continues to gain momentum and consumer loyalty as well as massive sales, as with all the other mass mediums, it was simply a matter of time before the industry discovered an appropriate relationship with the advertising and brand management industries. Games are not a niche. Games are a primary entertainment medium with growing power and consumer loyalty. The combination of the greatest brands with the greatest game titles makes perfect sense. If a hit CD can be broken in a video game just as the movie industry can spawn a soundtrack hit, the relationship of games to brand extension and advertising can not be far behind. The evolution of advertising, brand extension and promotions in the games industry is at hand. Shawn McMichael, Director of Advertising Sales and Marketing, Microsoft Casual Games Garry Kitchen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Skyworks Brandon Berger, Senior Strategist, Digital Innovation OgilvyInteractive Michael Wood, Managing Director, Cocojambo UK Steven Hoffman, North American Studio Head - Games & Mobile Entertainment, Infospace, Inc. Monika Madrid, Senior Manager, Strategic Sales and Partnerships, Ubisoft Jack Dearnbarger, Director of New Business and Client Services, Blockdot, Inc., Moderator Garry Kitchen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Skyworks: Garry Kitchen, Skyworks’ Founder, President and CEO, is one of the world's leading a and Lincoln, Fox Sports, GlaxoSmithKline, Mattel, Microsoft Network, MTV, Pepsi, Toyota, and many others. Over 1 billion Skyworks’ client-branded games have been downloaded from clients’ websites. Over 40 million client-branded games are downloaded each month. Garry has been a creative leader in interactive entertainments for over 25 years. His innovative, patented, hand-held electronic game Bank Shot, marketed by Parker Brothers in 1980, was named one of the 10 best toys of the year by Omni magazine. In 1982, Kitchen designed and programmed Coleco’s smash hit Atari VCS home version of the Donkey Kong arcade game, a video game cartridge whose sales eclipsed $100 million. Moving onto Activision, Kitchen’s 1982 release Keystone Kapers received critical acclaim and achieved worldwide sales of more than 750,000 units. Kitchen’s Gamemaker, a top-selling Activision title for the Commodore 64, earned him the title of Video Game Designer of the Year in 1985. In 1986, Kitchen founded Absolute Entertainment, Inc., building it into one of the leading video game developers in North America. Under his leadership, Absolute created more than 120 software titles while working with such leading entertainment companies as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, 3DO, Paramount Pictures, MCA, 20th Century Fox, Acclaim, and Electronic Arts. Kitchen’s 1991 release, The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants, published by Acclaim Entertainment, was praised by Variety magazine as a breakthrough in the video game licensing of television properties. The "Bart vs...." line of Simpsons’ games went on to sell more than 2 million units, establishing Bart and family as a mainstay property in entertainment software. Kitchen’s 1992 release, Super Battletank, was named Best Simulation Game by Game Informer Magazine. Kitchen has received numerous awards for his work, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in Video Games and a nomination as Entrepreneur of the Year in New Jersey in 1993. His knowledge and experience in interactive content is well respected, with numerous television appearances including CNBC, ABC Eyewitness News, NBC’s Today Show and CNN as well as innumerable interviews in consumer and trade publications. Kitchen is also a frequent speaker and panelist at conferences on the emerging use of interactive euthorities on client-branded interactive entertainment. Skyworks originated the category of client-branded online games with the creation of Lifesaver’s Candystand in 1997. Since then, Skyworks has created over 300 different client-branded games for Abbott Labs, BMW, Buick, Campbell Soup, Comedy Central, ESPN, Fordntertainment for advertising. Steven Hoffman, North American Studio Head - Games & Mobile Entertainment, Infospace, Inc. runs Infospace’s U.S. games studio, where he oversees production of mobile games and entertainment. Hoffman is a founding member of the Academy of Television’s Interactive Media Group and sits on the Board of Governors for the Producers Guild’s New Media Council. Hoffman was the Chairman & CEO of Spiderdance, one of Hollywood's leading interactive television studios. Prior to Spiderdance, Hoffman owned and operated LavaMind, which developed games published by Microprose / Spectrum Holobyte, Seiko Epson, Magellan, Manaccom, McGraw-Hill. In 1993, Hoffman worked for Sega in Japan, generating new concepts for amusement gaming. Before that, Hoffman was a TV development executive at Fries Entertainment in Hollywood. He holds a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of California and a Masters in Cinema & Television from USC. Hoffman serves on the Board of Advisors for the Vancouver Film School and has authored the book "Game Design Workshop" published by CMP in 2004. Shawn McMichael, Director of Advertising Sales and Marketing, Microsoft Casual Games: As director of advertising sales and marketing for Microsoft’s Casual Games Group, Shawn McMichael is responsible for all aspects of sales generation including advertising, sponsorships and demand generation for downloadable content for several of the Casual Games Group’s platforms, including Xbox LIVE Arcade and MSN Games. During his ten-year tenure at Microsoft, McMichael has worked as the group manager for Microsoft’s Direct Acquisition group where he was responsible for all MSN direct strategic planning, budgeting and implementation of acquisitions and growth strategies through direct response marketing. He also served as product planner for MSN 8 where he successfully drove premium services and was the group marketing manager for Microsoft’s mobile devices division for the introduction of the Pocket PC and Auto PC. McMichael has a bachelor’s degree in organizational communications from San Francisco State University. Monika Madrid, Senior Manager, Strategic Sales and Partnerships, Ubisoft: Monika Madrid is senior manager of strategic sales and partnerships at Ubisoft. Monika joined Ubisoft in 2001 and launched the company’s licensing program for the North American territories. Today Monika manages the team responsible for all of North American non-retail business and key worldwide accounts. She is responsible for Ubisoft’s partnerships for in-game branding and product integration, product and technology bundles, outbound licensing, strategy guides, loyalty programs and Macintosh ports. Monika’s team has grown revenue to $3.5 million and has established partnerships with high-profile companies including Yahoo, Bell Canada, AMD and nVIDIA. Prior to Ubisoft, Monika was business development manager at Snowball.com, the parent company of several videogame and teen-focused lifestyle Web sites. At Snowball.com, Monika developed and maintained strategic partnerships with annual revenues of more than $1 million each. Monika was also responsible for overseeing execution of partnerships in coordination with product management, client services, advertising, operations, engineering, affiliate services and finance. Prior to Snowball.com, Monika was an account supervisor at Access Communications, a public relations and marketing agency. At Access, Monika developed national public relations and marketing campaigns for Internet, videogame, technology and blue-chip companies. Monika earned a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She lives in San Francisco.