Stride Gum Lets Fans Fight Digital Monsters to Save a Real Arcade
Stride Gum, the Cadbury Adams-owned brand whose ads encourage users to chew more gum, wants to get consumers playing more video games too. And they’re putting up $25,000 as a prize.
Interestingly, that prize won’t go to the fastest killer of pixellated aliens but to the arcade itself. Specifically, Stride has chosen four video arcades around the country, all of them reportedly on hard economic times, and will turn the grand prize over to one of them.
The company has mounted an ‘80s-style scrolling shooter arcade game called “Zapataur” at a microsite. Registered users can play the game using their computer keyboards and then donate the points they’ve acquired to one of the four embattled video palaces: Arcade UFO in Austin TX; Starbase Arcade in San Rafael CA; Star Worlds Arcade in DeKalb IL; or Game Galaxy, Nashville.
The arcade to which players have donated the most points by October 6 will win the $25,000 award. In case of a tie, the arcade whose point total comprises the largest number of individual game plays will win.
A leaderboard at the Web site, which went live when the Save the Arcades promotion launched in early August, shows the current point totals. At press time Texas-based Arcade UFO is leading the quartet with almost 180 million donated points, more than four times as many as cellar-dwelling Game Galaxy.
The Save the Arcades promotion is similar to several other campaigns that have cropped up in the economic downturn aimed at giving financial help not to individuals or charities but to businesses. A recent UGC contest from American Express asks visitors to nominate and then vote for worthy small businesses, with the highest vote-getting enterprise receiving a $50,000 award and another $50,000 in marketing help from American Express.
The Stride promotion’s rules make explicit that the four participating arcades are ‘not charitable organizations’’ but “for-profit businesses that are participating in a promotional activity sponsored by Cadbury Adams USA.”
