JVC offers Euro 2008 prizes with online football game

by Darren Davidson, Brand Republic 05-Mar-08, 09:00

LONDON - JVC has launched a pan-European digital marketing campaign to promote its association with Euro 2008 through specialist viral agency Rubber Republic.

The campaign is centred around an interactive football game called EuroBall, which offers players the chance to win tickets to Euro 2008, footballs and other prizes.

The game, which is aimed at driving traffic to JVC's official Euro 2008 portal and its sponsorship of the tournament, is based on a school playground favourite called penny football.

EuroBall allows players to represent their country as they compete to push coins towards a goal in the fastest time. The leading players will be awarded prizes on a fortnightly basis, with JVC releasing additional prizes as more people play.

The campaign is being seeded within major online footballing communities across Europe in six different languages, using Rubber Republic's Viral Ad Network -- its recently launched ad distribution network with a combined reach of 14m people.

Ken Tsuji, marketing manager at JVC, said: "We chose to develop a viral game to support our official sponsorship of Uefa Euro 2008 as we thought it was the best way to access football-orientated social networks across Europe."

Rubber Republic has also produced a widget version of the game called EuroBall mini, that players can customise and add to blogs, social networking sites and community pages.

Chris Quigley, managing director of Rubber Republic, said: "To help JVC engage grass-roots football fans across Europe we wanted to create a football game that was as accessible as possible to both gamers and non-gamers.

"EuroBall does a great job of this by giving the classic table-football game a 21st century internet twist."