Trucking company tries to recruit drivers through a trucking video game

• The game, released in 2016 by SCS Software and regularly updated since then, allows players to drive authentic big rigs across the U.S.

What they’re saying: “We think that people who like the game, might like the real thing and want to drive with us,” said Kara Leiterman, a media relations manager for Schneider.

• The company got the idea to advertise after discovering that some of the drivers in their training program who received a commercial drivers license “showed skills above their experience level,” Leiterman said.
• “They credited their learning to the video game American Truck Simulator.”

Between the lines: Leiterman says it is too early to say if the ads are working but that the company is “optimistic.”

The big picture: The most popular form of advertising in video games involve interstitial ads that run between mobile games.

• But companies do dabble with in-game billboards. In 2008, for example, the Obama presidential campaign took out billboards in the Electronic Arts racing game Burnout Paradise.

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