Earlier today, MillerCoorsannounced a partnership with EA Sports and the legendary Madden NFL video game franchise, two brands that millions of American consumers have come to love over the years.
The partnership includes a national promotion and sweepstakes that kicks off on September 1, which will feature a number of exclusive prizes, including the opportunity to be featured as a character in next year’s game, tickets to the Madden Bowl XVII party in Dallas during Super Bowl week, and other prizing from EA Sports. On a local level, Coors will engage local accounts (a.k.a. bars) to organize Madden tournaments for consumers to play each other and NFL alums. Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, there is no information on the Coors or Madden websites (the link in the press release doesn’t work) and there are no tie-ins on the Facebook pages of Coors or Madden. According to the release, there will be a texting component to the sweepstakes, but details are unclear.
The great John Madden once said, “The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else.” Would Madden consider this partnership champion-worthy? It seems like it has the potential to be great, but the opportunity to engage their audience is being missed by not engaging via social media.
The Straddler: Take a look at this bus concept introduced at the Beijing International High-tech Expo back in May. Designed for high traffic, this public buscan hold up to 1,400 passengers and has a hollow undersection, allowing cars and other low-to-the-ground vehicles to drive underneath it.
Snow Stamp: Last winter, when the U.K. was covered in a blanket of snow, a team from Polo Mints hit the streets to make their mark – using a large branded stamp to replicate their iconic white mint, they left Polo Mint imprints in the fresh snow.
Virtual Insanity: We love the premise of this iPhone game that marries physical and virtual worlds – iPawn uses the iPhone touchscreen as a board and each player is given a small pawn (which is matter-of-factly better than Life and Monopoly pieces…combined) to participate in a role-playing conversation.
Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”
The gamer and comic book cult audience can be hard to please but when they are excited about something, they will let you know, as you can see from the above video.
Yesterday, for the second year in a row, Japanese gamer Daigo Umehara won the Street Fighter IV Championship at EVO 2010, which he will have to defend on his home turf later this year at EVO Japan. Take one look at Daigo’s Facebook fan page, and aside from the smaller following, Daigo is a celeb of the very niche gamer community. There are dozens of comments beneath each status update and he has fans that want to take photos with him, challenge him to matches and take pictures of and with him.
His win might not seem like a big deal to us, but Capcom, the creator of the Street Fighter franchise, couldn’t have planned it any better in terms of marketing. I hate to say it, but it is a bit like the LeBron James free agent situation, and Capcom is the Miami Heat. Basically, they hit the jackpot.
Check out more from EVO 2010 from Dave Rudden at GamePro.
Potato, Pa-tah-toe: At NYU’s ITP spring show, a student showed off the potato sack race of the future. The game puts cartoon character in a potato sack on a screen and consumers play by dialing in with their phone and yelling “jump.” The noise activates your cartoon player – the louder you yell, the faster you move. We suggest not playing against Fay Wray.*
Luxury Still Exists: Abu Dhabi has been hit with the Midas touch – in the Emirate Palace hotel, there is a vending machine that dispenses bars of goldand customizable coins.
The Artist is Present: Marina Abramovic has been sitting at a table at the MoMA since late March, ready to receive visitors, and she’s seen some pretty interesting characters. One of them beingher doppelganger; a young woman showed up in a long blue dress and a braid, just like Abramovic, and sat there all day, literally. More recently, she was visited by a New York-based makeup artistwho changes his look every time he visits.
*Here at “word. daily.” we strive to keep our cultural references hot-off-the-presses
Click here to let us know that you’d like to be added to the mailing list for the monthly edition of “word.”
Volkswagen has created a new iPhone application for the launch of its 2010 GTI model. The free app, called “Real Racing GTI,” allows users to compete by racing others and posting their scores on an online leaderboard. Users can also post their racing videos on YouTube if they wish.
How will Volkswagen’s app compete with other brands using mobile, you ask? By offering free cars!
“Players who download the app will be eligible for the 2010 GTI sweepstakes, which gives away a 2010 GTI Limited Edition Model every week for six weeks beginning Nov. 2nd. Each day that a player finishes a lap in the Real Racing GTI game he or she can enter into the sweepstakes.”
Incentives are important, especially in the oversaturated mobile app space.
This harrowing tale of love and betrayal on Second Life was brought to my attention by Ron Casalotti over at BusinessWeek. A woman is finally divorcing her husband after she caught him cheating with another woman—by using his avatar—in the virtual world. The woman has moved on and has a new man in her life, who she met while playing the internet fantasy role-playing game World Of Warcraft.
Office productivity is about to decline. According to TechCrunch, JibJab and OfficeMax’s uber-successful viral campaign, Elf Yourself, will team up this holiday season. With the help of JibJab, consumers can now “elf themselves” and perform three different dances - Disco Elves (as seen above), Jazz Elves and Country Elves. The new partnership could result in OfficeMax actually turning a profit on the campaign by selling digital downloads of the videos and images.
Google Image Labeler is my new favorite online game. It allows you to play a word-association game in partnership with other live users, and it helps Google improve the relevance of image search results. Everybody wins!
Adverblog recently posted about this interactive and fun way to provide an experiential online demonstration of Volkswagen’s Clever Innovations. Check it out and see if you can help out the driver, he seems to need it.
Come2Play is the Ning of social gaming networks. Meaning that, unlike the new generation of gaming networks (SGN, Zynga, etc.) whose games are the formation of branded networks, Come2Play is a white label solution for anyone who wants to create their own gaming network. The true “Ning-ness” of Come2Play’s offering is its platform’s granular customization.
RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan just launched WuChess, an online social network centered on the game of chess. Who knew RZA is an aspiring chessmaster when he’s not dropping phat beats?
