Gillette inks deal with online football game
Procter & Gamble (P&G) has penned a product placement deal with online football game I Am Playr for its Gillette brand as the FMCG business looks to drive registrations for the male grooming range’s recently launched YouTube football channel.
The deal will see Gillette products woven into the We R Interactive created game’s storyline. The game lets players experience the life of a professional football player both on and off the pitch using live action video and 3D gameplay.
Products will boost players’ on-pitch abilities such as shooting, dribbling and passing, while an upcoming feature will let them become the ‘face of Gillette’ as a virtual brand ambassador.
The content will be available exclusively to I Am Playr users who sign up to the Gillette Football Club, a personalised YouTube channel launched in September. It is hoped the tie-up with the game, which has more than 6.8 million registered users across 220 countries, will help boost registrations to the online initiative.
Alex Tosolini, vice president of e-business for P&G, says the partnership will take Gillette’s brand building activity to the “next level.”
She adds: “This new partnership with We R Interactive will enhance the experience for both football fans on Gillette Football Club and I Am Playr users. It builds on our vision to ultimately deliver the best a fan can get with a complete online football experience.”
The launch comes as rival Unilever-owned male grooming brand Lynx launches its first UK digital game. Players use their mouse to draw a line of attraction to catch a girl’s attention while dodging other men trying to do the same thing. The game, created by TMW and Sync Interactive, features a daily leader board and hopes to build on the brand’s social media fanbase after it became the first Unilever brand to reach one million fans on Facebook in the UK and Ireland earlier this year.
Mark Aschmann, Lynx brand manager, says “The core of our strategy for Lynx is to create reactive, relevant and entertaining content that our core customers actually want to engage with, so making a Lynx branded game was a logical step for us. Building it in HTML 5 means that is can be played by anyone, anywhere, anytime and highlights how we’re embracing new technology in our brand communications.”
Unilever also plans to target gamers with the launch of branded social gaming platform Lynx Planet. It has already launched in beta in the US under the Axe brand name.
