Old Navy Contest Winner Helps Shoppers Create Brand-Themed Songs
The winning integration from BreakoutBand was selected based on several criteria: originality, depth of audience engagement, use of viral channels, and effectiveness in elevating the Old Navy brand. BreakoutBand was awarded a $15,000 cash prize at a March 1 awards event. The winner, and two finalists, will also receive financial resources from Old Navy to fund the virtual currency and prize offers in their games.
“When the opportunity to hold the Old Navy Developers Challenge presented itself, we jumped at the chance to participate,” says Amy Curtis-McIntyre, senior vice president, marketing for Old Navy. “We’re always interested in new, fun, and culturally relevant ways to engage our customers.”
BreakoutBand.com allows users to create their own Old Navy-themed song, inspired by Old Navy Records’ debut songs “Super C-U-T-E” and “Ankle Show.” More than 200 songs have been created by users and on average each of those users spent 80 minutes in the Old Navy Records section of the web site. Two winning songs were selected to be featured on the Old Navy Facebook page, available for almost 2 million fans to hear; one of the songs was chosen by a panel of Old Navy judges for best reflecting the Old Navy brand, and the other song was chosen by the BreakoutBand community by securing the most “likes.”
“The opportunities for advertisers to access their target markets within social gaming are limitless, but often advertisers are unsure who to partner with and how,” says Rebecca Weeks Watson, vice president of business development at RadiumOne Social. “The ‘Old Navy Developers Challenge’ brought out the best of the best development studios, and we were amazed at how seamlessly the Old Navy brand and its new music campaign were promoted throughout these games and virtual worlds.”
Old Navy’s sponsorship of the competition took place in conjunction with its recent launch of its spring advertising campaign “Old Navy Records: Original hits. Original styles.” Combining music and fashion, the campaign features music video commercials and downloadable Old Navy branded songs about the brand’s target customer and the must-have looks of the season. Developers in the competition were encouraged to elevate the Old Navy brand in their game and find unique ways to promote Old Navy’s original music and videos.
Starting last month, the “Old Navy Developers Challenge” was open to all developers. After an initial review of mockups by the RadiumOne Social and Old Navy teams, three finalists – Sugar Inc., BreakoutBand and Tetris Online/Ace Studios – were chosen to run a live demonstration of their integration for a two-week period. Each finalist presented on stage at the March 1 awards event in front of 200 gaming and digital media executives, sharing details about their individual integration solutions and specific performance metrics. BreakoutBand was selected by a panel of judges, including executives from Old Navy, RadiumOne, AKQA and PlaySpan.
RadiumOne Social is one of three distinct RadiumOne products, along with the RadiumOne Ad Network and RadiumOne Mobile. RadiumOne Social officially rebranded from gWallet in February 2011. For more information, visit http://radiumone.com/social-game-developers.html.