Penguin celebrates 75 years with 75 new Popular Penguins and a social advergame
To celebrate Penguin’s 75th birthday, Penguin Books Australia has just published 75 new books in its bestselling Popular Penguins series. To mark the occasion they’ve also released an online social advergame Penguin Party.
Developed by advergame specialist, 3RD sense, Penguin Party tests a player’s knowledge of the Popular Penguins books, giving Australian players the chance to win 75 Popular Penguins in the process and a hand-crafted Mark Tuckey recycled hardwood bookshelf.
Penguin Party kicks off with a ballroom filled with characters and scenes from 75 Popular Penguins. The aim of the game is to match each of the 75 book titles with its representative party image. The player can view a description of the book, get hints, create a book wishlist, save their progress in the game and share Penguin Party with their friends on Facebook.
Players are rewarded for sharing the game with an extra ‘hint’ about one of the book titles and players who login using Facebook Connect can save their progress in the game. This encourages players to keep returning to the game until they match all 75 book titles.
Penguin Australia Marketing & Publicity Director Dan Ruffino said, “We’ve been watching the gaming space closely and wondering how readers might embrace books in this arena. We’re really delighted to be launching our first social advergame with the Popular Penguins series, particularly as part of Penguin’s 75th birthday celebrations.”
Colin Cardwell, CEO of 3RD sense said, “In Penguin Party we’ve incorporated all the features that make an advergame such a strong marketing tool. The game genre is tailored to appeal to the target audience, the design is fun and carefully integrates the brand and the game play is challenging and sticky, ensuring players will return to play multiple times. The usual long interaction times we see with an advergame will be further extended with the Facebook integration that makes it easy for players to both share and save the game.”
The Penguin Party launches today and the competition runs until Monday 16 August 2010.
LINKS
Images/game screenshots are available here: http://3rdsense.com/admin/news/edit/60/
The game is available here: http://penguinparty.popularpenguins.com.au/
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