Buoyed by Roblox’s rise, agency holdcos express confidence in gaming for 2025

A year of growth

Across the board, representatives of the holdcos and the agencies that comprise them said that their gaming business had grown over the past year, both through interest from new clients and via increased spend in the space on the part of pre-existing clients — although these statements were largely anecdotal and not backed by specific numbers.

“We’re developing integrated gaming strategies for more clients,” said Dentsu global gaming lead Brent Koning, who told Digiday that his company’s gaming bookings had more than doubled year over year between 2023 and 2024. “But it’s not just about working with clients; it’s also about integrating strategy.” To this end, he said, Dentsu is working more closely with member agencies such as iProspect and Carat to build dedicated gaming teams within specific accounts.

In addition to bringing in new clients or bookings, some holdco agencies have made hires or promotions representative of the growth of their gaming business over the past year. Earlier this year, for example, WPP agency Wavemaker appointed Sarah Salter as its global head of innovation and platforms, a role that includes gaming among its focus areas, which Salter said directly reflected the growing importance of gaming for the agency’s clients.

“We obviously scaled gaming to meet demand from our clients,” Salter said, although she declined to name specific clients. “I would say pretty much all of our top-10 global clients have increased their investment this year.”

Roblox’s role

Given both Dentsu and WPP have signed official partnerships with Roblox over the past two years, it’s telling that both companies — in addition to the other agencies Digiday spoke with for this story — specifically called out the metaverse platform as a source of growth for their gaming business in 2024. Through both its bespoke brand integrations and a programmatic ad product that launched in May, Roblox has become many advertisers’ default entry point into the gaming audience, which has had the downstream effect of increasing marketers’ confidence in the medium as a whole.

“It’s no coincidence that we’re in the Roblox Partner Program, and then a year or so later, the Shopify partnership is announced, right?” Koning said. “Being the first mover is so critical, because it allows us to be prepped for things like that. It’s a big part of why our gaming strategy is so successful.”

Although many brands are using Roblox as their entry point into gaming, the past year has been marked by the rise of new forms of gaming advertising inventory both inside and outside of the game, from Discord Quests to clickable in-game ads.

As gaming advertising opportunities abound, education about the multitude of available gaming advertising options continues to be a significant responsibility of the holdcos’ gaming departments, even if marketers are finally getting a handle on platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite. The Marketing Arm, for example, launched a podcast focused on marketing in gaming earlier this month.

“Across all of Omnicom, we do a ton in gaming; I’m essentially their consultant when it comes to gaming programs for clients across the board,” said The Marketing Arm gaming lead (and podcast host) Sami Barnett. “There’s so much happening in the gaming world — so many titles, influencers, you name it that we can work with — and so we’re just trying to provide some insight to help with decision-making.”

Room for improvement

In spite of their confidence, holding company representatives’ general reluctance to share specific figures regarding the growth of their gaming businesses reflects the fact that marketers’ spending in gaming still does not match the true popularity of the medium. The gaming industry has a total market value of over $184 billion and accounts for nearly 3.5 billion individuals across the globe, but gaming still accounts for less than 5 percent of brands’ advertising spend, according to Dentsu’s 2024 “State of Gaming” report.

If the holdcos want to see more brands put down roots in the fertile ground that is gaming, it is key that they continue to educate their clients about the many advertising options beyond Roblox and Fortnite — and that they encourage a diversified approach, rather than a focus on any single platform. The role of Roblox as an early default entry point for brands is important, but advertisers need to be more confident in using their marketing dollars in other areas of the gaming ecosystem as well.

“What we try and get brands to graduate into is doing more than just one activation, but all parts of gaming, whether that is programmatic, custom builds, or leveraging communities on Discord, if that is an opportunity for some brands,” said Publicis Media svp of gaming strategy and innovation Samantha Lim. “We do try and get people to think about the overall experience, and work with them in terms of, essentially, experience planning within the gaming ecosystem.”