Microsoft Advertising’s Jonathan Stringfield: Gaming’s Engagement Creates New Advertising Frontier

The good news for advertisers is that gaming is where engaged consumers are. Advertisers must take note that generational shifts and technological advancements have transformed gaming from a niche hobby into a mainstream cultural force.

“You increasingly have generations of individuals that grew up gaming. So as they grow into adults, they, too, are carrying those habits forward,” said Jonathan Stringfield, VP, Global Revenue & Business Planning at Microsoft Advertising, in this video interview with Beet.TV Editorial Director Lisa Granatstein.

Depth of engagement is a differentiator

While the gaming industry’s massive scale — estimated at 3.4+ billion players globally — is impressive, Stringfield emphasizes that it’s the medium’s unique depth of engagement that truly differentiates it for advertisers.

“When folks are interacting with gaming, that has to be their primary focus,” Stringfield said. “You can’t second-screen; you can’t divide your attention.”

This level of focused engagement creates an advertising environment unlike any other digital medium. In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, gaming stands out as a channel that consumers don’t just use, but genuinely love.

“There are few [media touchpoints] we actually love,” Stringfield noted. “That’s what’s really interesting about gaming — it’s deeply effective as a media, meaning that this is something that for core gaming fans, we really enjoy these types of experiences. We take them seriously, it almost becomes a part of our personality.”

How to play the game

For brands looking to enter the gaming space, Stringfield cautions against hasty, intrusive approaches. Successful gaming integrations require purposeful design that enhances rather than interrupts the gaming experience.

“To actually integrate within the game experience, you have to be very purposeful, and it has to be a way that actually augments the game experience,” he said. “If you kind of interject yourself into that game experience without it being uniquely built into the game, it’s not going to go well.”

Brands need to consider the broader gaming ecosystem, which Stringfield said includes experiences adjacent to gameplay itself, which includes video content, console dashboards, and other touchpoints that offer varying degrees of creative freedom.

The inevitable AI question

Looking ahead, Stringfield sees significant potential in AI integration within gaming environments, creating new opportunities for brands to connect with players through AI-powered experiences.

However, his greatest excitement centers on Microsoft’s development of unified, cross-platform advertising solutions that address the fragmented nature of gaming audiences.

“What you’re really finding is these clusters or spots and dots of potential audiences,” Stringfield said. “And when you start to confront the fractured reality of it, a lot of brands kind of balk at that. There’s very few ways that that’s possible in the gaming universe more generally.”

Microsoft is working to solve this challenge by scaling advertising solutions that span console, PC, and mobile gaming experiences.

“What’s unique in terms of platforms over at Microsoft is that we have the capability to go across all of these potential experiences,” Stringfield said. “I’m excited about that because having worked in this space for many, many years, that has been the regular ask from the advertiser community.”

As gaming continues to evolve into a true multi-platform experience, Stringfield believes advertising solutions must follow suit, creating opportunities for brands to engage with gaming audiences in ways that add genuine value across the entire ecosystem.