Mobile company Koodo is bringing new meaning to the expression “friends with benefits” in a marketing program aimed at driving awareness and understanding of its new Canada-wide calling plans.
The company has partnered with Toronto agency Taxi 2 on a new Facebook game called Friends with Benefits, which invites players to recruit their social media friends for a chance to win an Apple iPhone 4S, a Nexus S Android phone, gift cards or a trip anywhere in Canada.
The initiative is aimed at Koodo’s target market of young adults 18-30.
Consumers who “like” Koodo on Facebook are presented with a 40-second video featuring a Barry White-esque voiceover that begins “You there – the one with all those friends spread out across Canada. It’s time to start taking advantage of them.”
When players log in, the game calculates the distance between their current location and that of their Facebook friends, and then urges them to enlist those friends in the game. For every friend they successfully recruit, players are awarded points for every kilometre that separate them. The person with the most kilometres when the game concludes next month will win a trip for two to anywhere in Canada, plus $5,000.
The program is a digital extension of a traditional mass media campaign promoting Koodo’s Canada-wide plans, which enable subscribers to call anywhere in Canada without incurring long-distance or roaming charges.
“It leverages a deeply interactive and engaging medium like Facebook, which is a perfect complement to the massive reach and awareness of our traditional media,” said Nathan Roth, digital marketing manager for Koodo in Toronto.
“Everything we do in digital media has to be end-customer focused in order to leverage the medium correctly and deeply engage our customers.”
While Koodo has relied primarily on what Roth characterized as “organic drivers” to create awareness of the game, it has already garnered 15,000 additional Facebook followers and nearly 5,000 game participants since its Jan. 5 launch. Roth predicted that both numbers will “shoot up” when paid and owned media – such as e-mails – begin informing its customer base of the game this week.
Media for the campaign was handled by Cossette, while Strategic Objectives provided public relations support.
