South Africa, July 31 -- That is the argument Michael Anav, CEO and Co-Founder of ReachPlayers, has been making to brand planners for years, and the one the IAB is now building formal frameworks to support.

"Most briefs describe in-game branded content as advertising inside a game," says Anav. "That is technically true and almost entirely useless, because it misses the thing that makes it actually work."

His preferred definition is more specific. In-game branded content is a brand becoming part of a world players have chosen to live in. Not a banner at the edge of a screen. Not a pre-roll being tolerated until the skip button appears. A genuine presence inside an environment where players are already spending their time and their commit...