Frozen pizza and video games are a pretty natural parlay, and supermarket brand Tony’s Pizza has opted to launch its first promotion aimed at the gamer demographic by combining those two loves.
From now until December 31 2011, customers who buy any specially marked Tony’s Pizza can enter an on-pack code at the TonysNeedForSpeedGiveaway Web site and earn a virtual five-day car rental at EA.com’s Need for Speed World, a free online game that lets players race against their friends or other competitors from around the world. Participants who use the Tony’s codes will also get a $5 rebate for use in EA’s online store.
Need for Speed World is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) racing game offered as a free download by EA.com starting last year and built on what EA claims is the most popular racing video game series of all time, the Need for Speed series that debuted for PCs in 1994. Like most of that series of purchased games, the free Need for Speed World lets players customize and soup up their starter rides by buying virtual equipment, improving their garages and trading up for better vehicles.
“EA’s targets and Tony’s really align nicely,” says Petra Oman, brand manager for Tony’s Pizza. “We are really aiming at the same demographic here. The Tony’s brand has two target demographics, really. One is the mom on a tight budget who wants to provide for her family. The other is straight out of college or still in college and looking for convenient eats at a good price. We know he’s a gamer, so this promotion will add value for him.”
Tony’s has run on-pack promotions aimed at the mommy shopper in the past year, but Oman says this is the brand’s first promotion aimed at its other target buyer demographic.
The notion of drawing racing fans by offering players a short-term “rental car” rather than a permanent virtual good is an interesting twist on the majority of in-game code promotions. Users can race the car—a BMW Z4 lightly branded with the Tony’s logo on the license plate—for five days. They then have the option to buy another Tony’s item, get another code, and redeem it for another copy of the car.
“We were looking for a promotion that would offer value to encourage this target consumer to come back and purchase more product,” Oman says.
To give a further push to those multiple purchases and entries, Tony’s is also running a related sweepstakes giveaway of an actual BMW Z4. Players who provide their contact information, including email, when enter their EA on-pack code will also be entered into the giveaway. That contest will last until June 30 2012, with a random drawing soon after. Entries are restricted to one a day from each email address, and entrants must be 18 or older.
The partnership also has a lot of benefit for EA, says Eric Yabush, vice president of business development for Salt Communications, which does brand marketing for Tony’s. “50 million packages with exposure on the front of the pizza box in addition to the entire back panel enables us to really find a partner such as EA,” he says. “From a marketing perspective, it’s leveraging the value of one brand to the mutual benefit of both, and we’re looking to build a long-term partnership to reach this demographic.”
The Tony’s Need for Speed World promotion is being activated within supermarkets by means of shelf talkers, freezer clings and free-standing inserts. Tony’s and brand marketing agency Salt Communications have also done some outreach to gamer blogs to get the word out more directly to their target audience for the campaign.
For example, gaming blog GamingBits.com ran a two-day contest form October 5 to 7 offering a prize of three Tony’s coupons and a light-up mouse plus the EA prizes to a random winner; to qualify for the GamingBits blog prize, entrants needed to retweet and share the blog post announcing the contest. Since the winner would be announced in GamingBits’ Twitter account, they also needed to follow the blog in that channel.
Tony’s Pizza is a national retail brand owned by parent Schwann Food Company, a privately held frozen-food distributor that also owns the Red Baron, Freshcetta and Pagoda Express brands, among others.
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