Several of the campaigns featured in our post this week incorporated games into the ways they highlighted products. Car and Driver magazine began a long-term partnership with the Facebook game Car Town that makes the magazine’s content a central part of its print product and brings its print products directly into the game. Then Einstein Bros Bagels and Maybelline ran some interesting contests. Finally, Best Buy’s CityVille integration seemed successful enough that the company is going to bring it back in November.
You can see the full week’s coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of over 100 other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.
Car and Driver’s Car Town Integration
Goal: Network Exposure, Brand Loyalty, Product Purchase
Core Mechanic: Car and Driver, a car magazine, will be featured in Car Town, a game about cars on Facebook. The partnership started last week and will continue into 2012.
Game: Within the Car Town game, users will see new car releases, announcements and other information in the form of the magazine’s cover. Plus, users who create virtual car and garage designs within the game will be awarded Car and Driver magazine’s 10Best award.
Every month winners will have a chance to be featured in the magazine, as well as in the magazine’s website and social media channels. Then, Car Town news updates will be featured in the magazine with the latest tips from the game.
Method: This partnership seems to be very extensive, leveraging both the game’s and the magazine’s audiences and their interests to intertwine in seemingly sensible and effective ways. It takes something that happens in real life— new cars being featured on the cover of Car and Driver magazine — and translates it into a social game. Brands should consider where their products would appropriately fit into social games and seek to partner with the developers of those games as Car and Driver has done here.
Impact: The Car and Driver Page’s Likes have seen an uptick by a few thousand in the past week, according to PageData; currently the total is 92,500. It’s not clear if this comes directly from the game integration, though, especially since most of the Page’s activity is related to cars and not the game.
Einstein Bros Bagels’ Darn Good Coffee Motto Contest
Goal: Page Growth, Engagement, Network Exposure, Brand Loyalty
Core Mechanic: The contest invites users to Like the Page, then enter their choice motto that could end up on the company’s coffee t-shirts.
Method: Users who enter the contest are eligible to win free coffee and bagels for a year, in addition to smaller prizes of $100 gift cards.
Impact: The Page currently stands at 678,600 Likes and PageData shows that, as the contest began on September 5, the Page experienced moderate growth during the past week. A longer contest entry period may have helped promote momentum for the contest. By publishing to the stream a fun feed story about a user’s entry, the contest could have attracted more participants.
Inside Games’ AJ Glasser contributed to this report.
How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of hundreds of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.