Barclays is sponsoring the Transaid Challenge, an advergame to support charity group Transaid, which works (particularly in Africa) to improve the way that transport is managed and give people better access to basic services like healthcare and livelihoods opportunities.
It is nice to see how the range of communication tools available for charity is constantly growing and how, especially in the UK charity groups are actually using the Internet to spread their message. The Transaid Challenge puts the player in the driving seat of a four wheel drive health service vehicle, charged with the task of delivering services and supplies to remote African villages that need them.
Downloading the game also gives players an opportunity to enter a competition to win some great prizes - either a pair of Barclays Premiership tickets for the 2006/7 season or a night at the Waldorf Hilton Hotel, in the heart of London’s West End.
Maybe the game in itself is not particularly challenging nor innovative, but I like the idea of advergames which make people experience the product (or the service). They are quite rare to find, since most of brands prefer to take a simpler and simplicistic approach to advertainment (just let users have fun, and advergames are not always that funny...).
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