Mobile advergaming from Shanghai: Puma F1 Racing Game

Yeah, gotta mention this, even only for its Formula One connection, ha-ha, but this is actually a very clever and comprehensive engagement marketing campaging by Puma. It was reported at MobAd News.

Puma, the running shoes brand, set up a racing game for mobile that coincided with the Shanghai F1 race this past autumn. First cool gimmick the race track is in the shape of the puma logo - you know the jumping wild cat, with the tail extended. Better yet, it was a multiplayer game, allowing four gamers to race against each other on this track.

The advergame included rewards for success, so top 3 best scores each week would win Puma merchandise. But also those who were most active in spreading the advergame virally, were rewarded with Puma merchandise.

The game featured a good tie-in with the bricks-and-mortar stores, by creating "footfall" ie visitors to stores. There are 350 authorized Puma dealers in China. Each person who downloaded the game, received as a bonus, a coupon delivered via MMS that offered them a free item of mobile content, if they visited one of the authorized stores. And yes, of course, they included the store-finder part to the service including a map etc.

The game was called F-Wan which sounds a lot like "F1" ie Formula One, but also in Chinese it means "play". So this was Puma's "Play" campaign.

It has "communities dominate" all over it. It is gaming, it is cleverly sponsored (puma-shaped race track), it is viral, it is multiplayer, it bridges the virtual and real, and it is fun. A very well designed engagment marketing concept.

The campaign was created by Phonevalley and Zenith China. Great idea, and there clearly is a lot of innovation now in this advertising and mobile converging space. We will keep following this space closely.