The Situation
USAopoly is a leading specialty market board game developer known for adding fun twists to Monopoly® board games. The company needed an interactive website and innovative marketing strategy that would introduce new products inspired by the classic film, A Christmas Story. A comprehensive marketing initiative was also needed to drive traffic to the new site and create product awareness in time for the 2007 holiday season.
Strategy
To generate online buzz, an interactive trivia game was developed that served as a highly-effective viral marketing tool. The game allowed users to forward it to friends, collecting valuable user information for future marketing initiatives. To spread product awareness for the game and puzzle, we launched an integrated marketing campaign that included interactive media planning, Web PR, banner advertising and a Search Engine Marketing strategy to target online holiday shoppers and to drive consumers to retail stores.
Results
This integrated marketing strategy led to a significant surge in product sales and brand awareness. The A Christmas Story edition became the season’s most popular game at both Barnes and Noble and Borders and USAopoly completely sold out of product after only four weeks of the campaign. The interactive website received over 9,000 visitors in less than two months, over half of whom played the trivia game. The considerable popularity of the campaign also increased traffic to USAopoly’s corporate site where visitors could learn more about their other products. The strategy proved to be highly successful across the board, surpassing sales goals and serving as an effective way to build an email list for future marketing endeavors.