Background

Busch Entertainment, the family entertainment division of Anheuser Busch, has been one of Buddy Media’s most notable clients and partners, returning for social media engagements several times over the last 18 months. Their Worlds of Discovery advertising campaigns reach theme park enthusiasts with a mix of traditional print and television ads and the latest in social media networks.

The Worlds of Discovery parks appeal to different demographics – from families with small children to thrill seeking roller-coaster buffs, so developing a strategy that would target this vast array of people was the company’s number one priority. Buddy Media’s rousing success with past social media campaigns spurred Busch Entertainment to return for an effective concept, strategy, and development of a cross-platform initiative to launch a new park attraction and promote the family of theme parks. The campaign was designed to reach digital-savvy consumers through the portals that they frequent the most.

Objectives

• Design and optimize a social application to promote Worlds of Discovery theme parks
• Develop a cross-platform strategy to reach a wide audience on the iPhone, Facebook, and the open web
• Implement Facebook Connect technology to tie all three platforms together with a unified application leaderboard

Solution

The Worlds of Discovery project provided the Buddy Media team with the opportunity to flaunt their stuff – from concept to creative and technology implementation. Buddy Media’s Innovations department conceived of a simple ‘Spot the Difference’ game that would live on Facebook, the open web, and the iPhone—using iconic images from all the World of Discovery theme parks.

With the foundation laid for a robust cross-platform game, the project was handed over to the Buddy Media creative team to design an interface that would fit the identities of the different theme parks. The team also altered Worlds of Discovery photos with creative flourishes that would entertain and challenge users to ‘spot the differences.’ Once concept and creative were in place, the Buddy Media development team took the reins and drove the implementation of the technology that would seamlessly connect the three platforms. Each version of the game would be identical – despite completely different back-end coding and information architecture. However, all three platforms would be linked to a single leaderboard powered by Facebook Connect technology.

This proved to be a crucial ingredient in the creation of the application, considering the disparate audiences and technologies, because all users would be able to participate and compete, as if they were on the same platform—delivering cross platform engagement (CPE). When all was said and done, the Worlds of Discovery Photo Adventure exemplified the next generation of social games, which are available to users no matter what digital platform they are most comfortable playing on.

Go to the application on Facebook

Category: App-vertisement, iPhone Application, Facebook Connect