Frito Lay’s Cheetos have launched an ambitious new online campaign that is surprisingly very effective. It is entertaining, engaging, and very impressive considering it is a viral game centered around cheese flavored snack products.
In their campaign titled “Battle of the Cheetos” users pick a side; crunchy or puffy and do battle with other users online. It is a strategy war game where animated Cheetos fight with cheese-powered weapons to determine the superior type of Cheeto. As players win more battles they are rewarded with upgrades and more Cheeto warriors for your regiment.
The animated battlefields spring from partnered websites from which the viral game is accessed, including Mashable, Gawker, BoingBoing.net, Gizmodo, and many others. Statistics can be tracked via Facebook to determine which users are the most skilled generals for both the puffy and crunchy armies. The gameplay is simple yet engaging and like all great online multiplayer games, it allows users to taunt their opponents and trash talk via their computer’s microphone. This imaginative campaign may seem like a very strange way to promote and sell Cheetos but it is already doing an excellent job if you consider the content and depth of the game. Consumers spend an average of 12 minutes playing branded games, much longer than they would with any traditional form of advertising, also consider the Facebook connectivity and the fact that this branded game is actually quite fun to play; the Battle of the Cheetos is an impressive campaign that manages to entertain players centered entirely around the Cheetos brand. It is easily the best branded online game I have experienced and will hopefully set the tone for all branded game content that will follow.
This week Arrested Development alumni Jason Bateman and Will Arnett premiered their first viral video for their new production company DumbDumb, a sponsor driven comedy enterprise that specializes in branded content. DumbDumb is a first of its kind production company; backed by Barry Diller’s IAC and partnered with Ben Silverman’s Electus, it makes only comedic advertising content to be distributed virally. The first short viral video titled The Prom Date is the first of three “Dirty Shorts” webisode videos sponsored by Orbit Gum. The video series is built around Orbit’s brand promise to clean up dirty situations and this particular video features Bateman playing an angry dad, Aubrey Plaza as his angst filled teenage daughter, and Arnett as Skip her prom date/social studies teacher. The 5 minute web feature is absurdly funny, nailed their brand message, and could possibly mark a new era of branded advertising content taking product placement to a whole new level. By taking popular comedy actors and allowing them to produce content built around the established brand message it delivers funny, viral content that viewers and fans are much more likely to go out of their way to watch and share. After viewing this first feature it seems DumbDumb is destined to be a success, attracting viewers with its edgy content and the chance to see Bateman and Arnett work together again, that is until the rumored Arrested Development movie finally comes out.
