This story was delivered to Business Insider Intelligence Digital Media Briefing subscribers earlier this morning.

To check to see if you already have access to Business Insider Intelligence through your company, click here.

Snapchat partnered with Adidas and Dick's Sporting Goods to launch its first sponsored, shoppable 8-bit mobile game on the app, per Engadget. The game, called "Baseball's Next Level," allows players to play as MLB athletes who are each wearing their own limited-edition cleats from the Adidas 8-bit collection, which Snapchat users can then purchase directly within the game. The game is also available outside Snapchat on a microsite. Business Insider Intelligence

The shoppable game could help Adidas appeal to Snapchat's young user base, which tends to engage in both mobile gaming and social commerce:

Social commerce. Ninety percent of all 13-24 year-olds in the US use the app, according to Snap as of Q2 2019. In general, younger consumers are more interested in social shopping compared with their older counterparts — both for discovering and purchasing products. More than half (59%) of Gen Z shoppers ages 18-23 and 55% of millennials ages 24-37 say they often discover products through social media platforms, per ViSenze. Further, 44% of US internet users ages 18-34 say they've purchased products through social media — and another 28% of those who haven't are interested in doing so, per Bizrate Insights.

Mobile gaming. More than two-thirds (67%) of Americans — or about 211 million people — say they play video games, and of that group, 90% play games on a mobile device, per Electronic Entertainment Design and Research. Already, that gamers have shown appetite for making in-game purchases: For example, Fortnite, which generates all of its revenue through in-game purchases, grossed $3 billion in profit in 2018, per Sensor Tower. While Fortnite's purchases are for digital goods, like character "skins" — outfits for a gamer's avatar — Snapchat's shoppable game attempts to build on the behavior among gamers to inspire the purchase of real-world goods.

The game further indicates how mobile-first branded experiences will become increasingly immersive, entertaining, and interactive in order to drive conversions and retain users. Sponsored experiences built for mobile arguably need to be more engaging compared with other media environments because mobile users have total control over their screen and a moment's frustration could send them elsewhere: 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take more than 3 seconds to load, per Google.

More immersive, interactive ad experiences compel users to actively choose to engage with them, which likely makes them more effective compared with interstitial ads. Built-for-social sponsored experiences are likely to proliferate beyond Snapchat: Earlier this week, TikTok reportedly rolled out a new ad format called playable ads, which encourage downloads of a game or app by offering a playable preview, to ad buyers in East Asia, for instance. More of these experiences could begin to incorporate e-commerce functionality, especially as platforms look to both drive engagement and boost ROI for brands.

Want to read more stories like this one? Here's how to get access: