Car Town Promotes Honda CR-Z

It’s not unusual for a large car company like Honda to advertise its newest release on a billboard — unless, of course, that billboard exists in a virtual gaming community on Facebook.
Honda released a new Facebook game, called Car Town. Launched by Cie Game last August 9, Car Town allows players to use virtual money to buy, personalize and store hundreds of automobile in their cyber garage. Players can use this vehicle for road trips, or to complete some challenges to earn points.
For the whole two-month promotion period, clickable ads will appear on all in-game billboards featuring a render of Honda CR-Z. In addition to this, Honda will be one of the “Featured Garages” where users can watch its video commercial and purchase a Honda CR-Z for their own garage. Car Town’s version of Honda CR-Z can travel to both beach and snow-covered environments, boasting its sporty and fuel-efficient capabilities.
This is the first time that Honda used a social media game for advertisement. Steven Center, vice president of national marketing operations for American Honda, said that Car Town is a perfect fit because players can experience the new model in a not so very commercial way. On the other hand, the promotion also helped the game to spur enthusiasm. As of last Friday, Car Town has a 3.5 million users, more than double to what they got the last week.
Can Car Town entice you to buy Honda CR-Z? Or will Honda CR-Z make you play Car Town? Can social games really affect the players perception of a brand?
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