Talking Points: Location-based Gaming

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Joss Davidge, Business Director of brand experience agency BEcause, is always on the look out for marketing ideas that get people talking.  This week he looks at how location based-gaming is ripe for development by brands.

This week I’m going to come at this topic from two angles.  The first video is a fantastic new campaign from Nike, which uses mobile technology and depends on real world actions for players to join in.  The second video does the same but is just a game. Both are examples of how far brands could potentially go to encourage deeper involvement and interaction by using location-based gaming.

Nike Catch the Flash

I think this campaign is brilliant.  50 runners were hooked up to GPS tracking devices and for 90 minutes they jogged through the streets of Vienna wearing reflective jackets.  Players had to then locate runners using a mobile app, chase them and take a photo.  The flash of their cameras would reveal a number on the back of the jackets and the person to collect the most numbers was declared the winner.  Nike has done such a great job of taking a trending technology and applying it to its brand.  This game is fun, interactive, encourages running and healthy competition.

Code Runner


“A real-world, location-based, iPhone adventure game” this extraordinary mobile experience is already receiving some great feedback online.  Using storylines that have worked so well on other gaming platforms, this adventure allows you to also interact with the real world as an undercover agent for an Orwellian government department.  It is GPS enabled so it can be played anywhere in the world as your city streets become the game.  Geo-cashing has already been used by several brands to encourage interaction.  Earlier in the year we created a campaign for Timberland that relied on location check- ins.  Games like Code Runner could add a whole new dimension to the GPS treasure hunt.

Read more BEcause blog posts. Visit their website, and tweet @becausexm.

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Posted: December 16th, 2011 | Author: will.armstrong | Filed under: Talking Points | Tags: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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