In-game ads drive 62% of brand discovery in Southeast Asia: Report

AnyMind Group and InQognito Insights have presented a joint research paper titled ‘Beyond Panels: Unlocking Consumer and Brand Insights through In-Game Audiences’ at the ESOMAR Trends Horizon 2025 event held in Washington, D.C., on November 5-6.

Key findings showed that 62% of Southeast Asian respondents reported first encountering brands via in-game ad placements, surpassing OTT and YouTube. Ads served within 5-7 days of purchase decisions boosted recall and consideration by 64%. A combination of in-game ads, YouTube, and influencer videos achieved 51% reach with just four exposures, optimising media efficiency.

According to the paper, ‘Beyond Panels’ introduces a mobile-native, behaviour-first research model aimed at regions where digital and gaming usage dominate daily life. It benchmarks in-game audiences against traditional panels across dimensions such as engagement depth, feedback speed, and data freshness, finding higher authenticity and real-time insights in gaming environments.

The study, conducted between April 2024 and August 2025 across India, Southeast Asia, and GCC markets, surveyed 25,000 smartphone users aged 18-45. It examined behavioural data collected through the mobile gaming ad platform POKKT to analyse the impact of in-game advertising on brand recall and purchase consideration.

Co-presenting the study, Aditya Aima, Managing Director of Growth Markets at AnyMind Group, said, “In a world where attention is fleeting and fragmented, marketers can no longer rely on retrospective panels. This study is a call to evolve, from measuring after the fact to understanding behaviour as it unfolds in natural, immersive environments.” 

Smriti Singh Bhatia, Research Lead at InQognito Insights, added, “Traditional panels are like rear-view mirrors; they show us where we’ve been, not where the consumer is going. Our focus here was to move research from recall to reality, as we strongly believe that the era of claimed behaviour is over. It’s time to understand consumers as they live, scroll, play, and shop, not as they say. This study has reiterated that belief with real-time observation, immersive tech, and contextual data, being no longer add-ons, but the new baseline of consumer understanding.”