Burger King Xbox Games Integrated Campaign

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Burger King Xbox Games Integrated
Campaign Applied Technology - Assignment 2 By
Michael Aquan-Assee
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• In November 2006, Burger King made gaming
  history by partnering with Microsoft to develop
  three XBOX games. The games allowed Burger King
  to create a connection with gamers, who were
  increasingly turning away from traditional
  advertising such as television. The games
  successfully drew consumers into the King's world
  by featuring characters and products seen in
  Burger King's advertising. The games were sold in
  store, during the holiday season, for 3.99 each
  with the purchase of a BK Value Meal. 2.4 million
  games were sold in only 5 weeks.
• The BK King Games were deemed a huge success by
  client and consumer alike. The games were
  certified platinum by Microsoft on December 20,
  2006. Meaning, 2.4 million units were sold during
  the 5 week promotional period. This ties with the
  current 3rd best selling XBOX game of all time.
  The estimated media impressions generated by the
  King Games was the equivalent to thirteen
  Superbowls. The XBOX games also helped Burger
  King draw record traffic and sales system wide.
  The advertising agency that created the campaign
  was Crispin Porter Bogusky, which is based in
  the U.S.A.

How the King Made The Games - Movie BK XBOX Games
Integrated
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Burger King is not the first company to create
promo games designed to entice customers into
buying their products. Back in 1983, Mattel
Electronics, created Kool Aid Man for the Atari
VCS (2600) and the Intellivision. The game would
later become available for traditional retail
purchase, but originally consumers had to send in
Kool Aid UPC symbols along with a small handling
fee to get the game. Johnson Johnson
commissioned a similar title the same year, Tooth
Protectors, also for the Atari, which was only
available by mail order from the company. And
also in 1983, Purina offered Chase the
Chuckwagon, similarly available only by mail
order in exchange for UPCs and a handling
charge.
http//seriousgamessource.com
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• Advertisers see in-game advertising as a prime
  way to target young audiences who are
  increasingly neglecting television in favor of
  computer and video games. However some gamers see
  this type of advertising as invasive and
  annoying. Market researchers are now discovering
  that in-game advertising is not as effective in
  capturing the attention of audiences as they
  hoped it would be. Bunnyfoot, a behavioral
  research consultancy conducted an independent
  study that reveals a lack of engagement between
  videogame players and in-game advertising. Burger
  King does not consider their King games to be an
  adver-gaming initiative, according to Martha
  Tomas Flynn, senior director for national
  promotions at Burger King.
• "The plan for the games and where we ended up
  was to make a legitimate entertainment experience
  that uses the Burger King icons as licensed
  characters,"
• This is why BK games do not suffer the same
  problems as in-game advertisements. The game is
  one big advertisement for the brand, yet it is
  not pushed to the consumer in that way. They are
  entertaining and offer customers a great
  experience at a value for money price.

www.mtv.com http//pc.qj.net
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• The video game market is booming and this growth
  is predicted to continue. PricewaterhouseCoopers
  estimates that the global video game market will
  increase from 31.6 billion in 2006 to 48.9
  billion in 2011, growing in every region. This
  leaves advertisers with a huge market to play
  with. Companies like Burger King have been and
  will continue to look for new market
  opportunities within this area and others in
  order to engage consumers with their brands.

www.businessweek.com
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Marketers are developing new creative ways to
engage consumers, in order to keep their interest
and brand awareness. Burger King is making a
feature length film that will star the King
character from its ad campaign. Anheuser-Busch
plans to start a seven-channel TV network online,
called BudTV. and Mountain Dew, a PepsiCo brand,
produced a movie about snowboarding that ran in
theaters nationwide. Companies are turning to
methods like these because, in the world we live
in today, it is becoming increasingly harder to
capture peoples attention. Products such as the
digital video recorders TiVo, which allows
consumers to bypass commercials, are adding to
the challenge marketers face.
www.nytimes.com
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The digital age has not totally killed television
as a medium for advertising messages. It has
however hindered the traditional way those
messages are delivered. Companies and agencies
are now creating the television content in order
to gain a better understanding of the types of
shows that will be hits as well as the bonus of
having first dibs on prime ad buys. "The
Digital Age requires advertisers not to interrupt
content but to create it," says Peter Tortorici,
a former president of CBS Entertainment.
"Programming only works if people really enjoy it
and keep coming back." I think this new strategy
could cause concern for some audiences. Companies
will have an even firmer grip on audiences,
allowing them to target and place their
advertising more effectively. The viewer is no
longer in control of which ads they watch if they
tune into the programs that were created by the
advertisers. They will be guided in directions
the creators chose, and they will become easy
targets because they are voluntarily
participating in it.
http//money.cnn.com
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Marketers have discovered social network sites as
an effective way to attract younger customers.
Companies such as Burger King, JP Morgan Chase,
Apple and Wendys are creating campaigns for
social networks such as Facebook and
MySpace. Burger King has created a MySpace page
for their King character who has already amassed
more than 120,000 friends. The King buys his
friends by offering free episodes of Fox shows
such as 24 and American Dad. "Consumers respect
us more as a brand if we are giving them
something they can use," says Gillian Smith,
senior director of media and interactive at
Burger King. Burger King also has a MySpace page
for their Whopper Jr. character, that was part of
their advertising campaign. In addition to
creating the BK games, Burger King organized
2-day and 1-day tournaments with various prizes
over Xbox Live. This engaged people from all over
the world to compete against each other from
their living rooms. Companies are finding ways
to become more relevant to consumers and
marketing to audiences in their own environment
using social networking, is proving to be very
effective.
www.businessweek.com
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New Technologies are changing the way we live, do
business and interact with each other.
Advertising is moving along with these changes,
and embracing them in order to communicate and
interact with consumers. Consumers are smarter
and more aware of the traditional methods
advertisers use to persuade them to buy products.
We are becoming overloaded with information,
therefore we have become more adept at filtering
out unwanted ads that are thrown at us.
Advertisers are aware of this and are changing to
fit in with consumers hectic lifestyles. They are
creating much of the content that entertains
audiences and interacting with them on a personal
level. With the rise in technology, video games
will become more widespread, appealing to larger
demographics. Companies like Burger King are on
the right track by developing games that instill
the companies brand into the consumers
subconscious at a level that is only possible
with full interaction. Advertising that is placed
randomly in games will never be as effective as
branded content. Consumers tune them out just as
they do television commercials. By entertaining
consumers and engaging them with original
creative content that benefits the consumer is
the way forward and companies that utilize these
opportunities will see the benefits.
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Thank you, please come again!