Are you ready to play?

It's a medium that's likely to become one of the top-five ranked electronic channels, along with mobile communication, interactive TV, internet advertising and e-mail advertising.

I'm talking about electronic games which, over the past five years, have taken off in a big way. Yet their enormous potential as advertising channels has been tapped only in a limited way, until recently.

Did you know that that one of the key reasons for Red Bull's (the energy drink) dramatic success was its appearance in PlayStation 1? After a heavy, intense game a commercial for Red Bull would appear in almost a product-placement context, teasing the player to learn more about this new drink. Needless to say, Red Bull is today the leader in its category, an achievement reached in just three years.

The worldwide games industry, including everything from arcades and game consoles to PC games, setup box games and cellphone games, is now a US$49.9 billion business. But, hold your horses! It's expected to grow by 71%, to US$85.7 billion by 2006, according to Informa Media Group in the United Kingdom. Experts predict that worldwide console sales will double in the next five years to a total of 200 million units, thanks to this fall's new products from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. And, perhaps not surprisingly, these sales will be to an audience composed of intensely interested participants, an audience which currently includes 25% of the total online US audience. This group spends five or more hours per week playing online games, according to a recent IDG study.

So, a new and attractive marketing channel has been added to the media repertoire. When Nicolas Negroponte predicted some years ago that the revenue model for games would not be a fixed price per game but a flexible price that changed according to the 'ammunition' you decided to 'purchase' during the game, he was on the right track. We're not only going to see sponsor awards featured in games, but also heavy product placement, even product placement strategies that allow players to choose their favourite brands - to equip themselves with well-known car brands, select their preferred sports shoes, consume a favoured energy drink before commencing a battle.

But it doesn't stop there. Remember, we're talking about an interactive medium. Passive advertising won't cut the gravy for your brand in this environment. You'll need to harness attention for your brand by leveraging the interactivity of the games: implanting the product in the story, introducing it as part of the action, generating the synergy between context and brand that's so difficult to achieve via other media channels.

So, before it's too late, tell me how your brand will articulate its message and establish its tone of voice in a market place where more than 200 million people are already spending more than five hours a day online, honing their skills, and readying themselves for the challenge of your brand message.