If you’ve been around long enough you’ve heard the idiom, “well, that’s like comparing apples and oranges.”  The idea of course is that you can’t compare an apple against an orange, because they are inherently different things.  Some example of how this would play out are:

• Sports car vs. SUV: you can’t compare a car designed for speed that holds 2 people against one that’s designed for holding 6 people and hauling stuff.
• Baseball vs. Hockey: you can’t compare two completely different sports; especially when one is played on ice and the other on a field.
• The Beatles vs. The Killers: you can’t compare music from the 60s with music from the 2000s.
• Babe Ruth vs. Alex Rodriguez: you can’t compare two different eras of baseball because the equipment, technology, travel, etc. were too different.
• The Shining vs. The Catcher In The Rye: you can’t compare Stephen King’s horror work against the great american novel; the genres are too different.
• Your First Crush/Love In Middle School vs. Your Wife: you can’t compare your emotional maturity at 14 against your emotional maturity at 20-something.

On the surface, you’d believe that the logic for why you can’t compare apples against oranges, or as listed above, The Beatles against the Killers.  For years, I abided by that same concept.  My dad and I would try to debate if Michael Jordan was a better player than Wilt Chamberlin or some other player.  And, inevitably we’d end up agreeing to disagree because you can’t compare guards against centers, different eras, different rules they played under, etc.

But, I’m here to tell you today, that I think it’s a cop out when people say you can’t compre apples against oranges.  Granted it’s not easy, but it can be done.  Often the problem is people don’t want to put in the effort to define the criteria to use for comparing the apple against the orange.  For example, I’ve been in meetings where someone will say, “you can’t compare Facebook against TV, they’re simply too different.  It’s like comparing apples and oranges.”  Really?  You’re trying to tell me that we couldn’t develop criteria to compare those two options?

I can give you 5 different ways to compare:

1. Straight up cost
2. Reach
3. Ability/ease to target
4. Steps to convert (whatever the conversion is)
5. Speed to launch

Now, granted you may not like comparing Facebook against TV, using that criteria, but the fact is, we can do it.  Too often we fall into the habit of relying on what we know and our comfort level with things…not to mention, we also try to avoid conflict.

Conflict, you say?  Well, my favorite example of this is when your current significant other asks you how they stack up against previous ones.  Of course, the “correct” answer is, “well you can’t really compare, you’re all unique, with different features, pros, cons, but the fact of the matter is I’m with you right now.”  In a work scenario, this situation comes up when you’re asked to evaluate your staff (or as it was known at ConAgra Foods, “force rank”).  How do you compare a designer against a strategist?  What about a business analyst against a quality assurance manager?  Clearly, you can’t because they are apples and oranges.

Folks, the reality is, you can compare anything, so long as you establish the evaluative criteria.  Rarely, is this done, which leads us to supporting the cop out of “you can’t compare apples and oranges.”  Make the time and effort up front to develop truly meaningful criteria for evaluating options, people, decisions, platforms, etc. If you do, not only will your decisions be smarter and more well informed, but you’ll also be in a position to better determine if your decisions were the right ones.

I like video games. They’re a release for me. I really enjoy sports game. Be it Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, or Golf (no Soccer) – I play sports games. Over the past 3 years I’ve noticed two trends:

1.  Sports games are getting worse
2. Advertisers are spending more money on in-game advertising

I picked up MLB 2K9 this year, despite a sub par review from IGN. My choices were limited because 2K Sports, the manufacturer of the game, has an exclusive agreement with Major League Baseball. Essentially, if you wanted to play a baseball game this year on the XBOX 360, they were the only choice.

To put it mildly, the game is a disappointment. It doesn’t even meet the basic expectations I had. The one thing that did impress me was the amount of integration Pepsi had in the game. As you can see from this screen shot they are, well, everywhere.

This got me thinking. Television networks price costs for 15/30/60/etc. second spots based on the show. Better shows, that attract more viewers, cost more. This chart does a nice job of showing how this has played out over time.

In some way, the advertiser (in this case Pepsi) is banking on the show being good. If the show explodes, they make out ahead. If the show tanks they lose. So that all makes sense. Let’s take it a step further. When a brand does a sponsorship of a show they are taking a larger risk and on some level engaging in a partnership with the show. The show now has an obligation to the advertiser to deliver the goods. On many levels this is exactly what it’s like for in-game advertising. Pepsi’s sponsorship of the game (that’s really what it is) is a partnership between some combination of Pepsi, Microsoft (XBOX manufacturer), and 2K Sports.

If you’re Pepsi, do you really want to be associated with a game as bad as MLB 2K9? A game that even die hard fans are saying sucks. There words, not mine. Of course not. You want to be associated with with things that are analogous to your company, image, and audience. If I’m Pepsi, I’d be asking for a make good on the ad space. I don’t even know if that exists in the in-game advertising space.

Thanks for hanging in this long. So what’s the point? Simple. Will advertisers have a say in the final quality of video games? Will they be able to demand, on some level, a game that meets the expectations of the fan base? After all if the games continue to be garbage, no one will buy them, which screws up the whole in-game advertising circle of love. No one makes money. No one connects with their consumer. Nobody wins.

If in-game advertising continues to increase (eMarketer says it’s on the massive upswing) game manufacturers will have even more pressure to deliver and quality product. That spells good news to the consumer. The real question, is how long it will take for this to happen. My guess is within the next 3 years.