World’s Leading In-Game Advertising Company Launches In France

IGA Worldwide appoints International advertising specialist Antoine Dubuquoy to lead French operation

World leading in-game advertising company IGA Worldwide has expanded its European presence with the launch of its French office and the appointment of Antoine Dubuquoy as its New Business Director. Dubuquoy joins the company from the Le Monde publishing group where he was Regional and International Advertising Sales Director.

IGA Worldwide has existing offices in North America, Germany and the UK and the new Paris-based operation will focus on working with local advertisers and brand managers who wish to capitalise on the rapidly growing in-game advertising market that analysts estimate will grow to be worth $1bn by 2011.

IGA’s proprietary global advertising network includes over 80 PlayStation 3 and PC titles from the world’s leading game publishers and developers including Electronic Arts and Activision.

In France alone, IGA Worldwide reaches over 2.2 million highly engaged consumers, generating almost 200 million advertising impressions a month.

With clients including Coca-Cola, Gillette and Unilever, IGA Worldwide’s French office will provide localised, dynamically updating advertising to French gamers.

Commenting on his new role Antoine Dubuquoy said, “Publishers are increasingly looking to offer products and content that is tailored to local markets and languages. Our Paris office further extends IGA’s ability to offer truly international expertise across Europe and North America. France has a rich heritage of developing excellent and creative gaming experiences and we’re looking forward to working with their developers.”

Giuseppe Bellanca, VP of Advertising Sales, Europe said, “Advertisers are looking for innovative channels to impress the hard to reach 16-34 year old demographic. The IGA network offers advertisers a robust and recession-proof media channel that guarantees total engagement of its audience. A larger and broader part of the country’s population is spending time  playing videogames. It’s a time when they are very receptive to advertising and one that we are uniquely placed to help the French industry capitalise upon.”

About IGA Worldwide

IGA Worldwide (http://www.igaworldwide.com) is the world’s leading in-game advertising network. IGA enables advertisers to target millions of highly engaged consumers playing games across a wide range of gaming platforms and genres. IGA Worldwide was selected by Sony Computer Entertainment as the first in-game advertising provider for the PLAYSTATION®3 and is partnered with leading game companies such as Activision, Atari, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, id Software and Valve Software.  The company has delivered campaigns for a broad range of brands such as 20th Century Fox, Gillette, Intel, McDonald’s, Puma, Toyota and Unilever. IGA was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in New York City with additional offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Paris and Berlin.  IGA’s financial backers include GE/NBCU, Intel Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, Easton Capital, DN Capital, KTB Ventures, Translink Capital, Itochu Technology and Sumitomo/Presidio STX.