Experience a Volvo truck
This is an advergame for the boys out there who always dreamt of driving a truck (at least for a day). The Swedish developers at Muskedunder Interactive have created a game for Volvo Trucks to experience the challenges of driving a truck.
The game is very nicely developed (although the game screen is way to small) and has a good mix of realism and playability, which explains why it has been played over 40000 times in less than 4 days.
There is also a competititon attached. The best drivers will win a jacket inspired to the truck itself.
From a purely marketing perspective I have a few doubts on the use of an advergame as tool to promote Volvo Trucks. It’s good if you want to be inspirational and target the truckers of the future (those who now are 12 to 18 years old), but if you are looking for immediate results, probably a more conservative approach to media might do a better job. Not because I don’t believe in the Web as a tool for marketing actions targeted at grownups, but simply because I don’t know how much time truckers have to navigate the WWW.
I cannot agree more, actually I wrote a similar post weeks ago
Edward
Frontier Blog
http://www.hwswworld.com/wp
I love how vehicle companies are utilizing creative ways to engage consumers. This “advergame” is another great example. Although at this point in time to reach target audience it may be wiser to use traditional media, I think it is wise for companies to try out new ways to advertise to their consumers because through experimentation comes true innovation.
Actually there has been a tremendous buzz about this game on trucker forums all over the world. The game has been embeded on many popular truck blogs. Volvo is extremely happy about how this campaign has turned out. The game is getting a lot of attention, and very long exposure time from the users.
This from our perspective, as developers. We are very proud on how the game has performed.