Farmville’s Creator Zynga To Host “On-Game” Engagement Ads

Farmville and Mafia Wars’ creator, Zynga is recently valued at an astonishing $4 billion valuation.

Its main source of revenue comes from selling virtual products to players who wish to gain an edge in the otherwise free-of charge games. Now, the social game maker giant is on its next move towards greater riches.

Unsurprisingly, it is ads that will be Zynga’s next business portfolio. According to AdWeek, Zynga has partnered with engagement ad network SocialVibe to trial run this possibility.

Ads would appear as a simple message at the bottom of the screen and users will be asked to complete brand related tasks to earn virtual currencies. Other possible tasks include watching a video or filling out a survey. Zynga plans to charge at about a dollar per engagement achieved.

“We have a product that allows brand marketers to have their own custom engagement,” said Michael Comerford, a former Google sales executioner who’s leading Zynga’s ad efforts. “I like to call this opportunity ‘on-game’ advertising as opposed to ‘in-game’ advertising.”

The game plan seems perfect. Users get to fund their virtual needs while brands are able to engage gamers through simple brand related tasks. Making users work on these tasks provide a stronger impact compared to display ads. However, Zygna would have to take proper steps to expand its advertising business as last fall’s we have witnessed TechCrunch labeling the company as ScamVille over some dubious ad offering.

This new engagement ads could work given the success Bing has achieved over its campaign, which saw the search engine acquired over 400,000 Facebook fans in a day. If the ads’ tasks are simple enough to complete, I’m pretty sure users wouldn’t mind spending a minute to earn some virtual money.