Over the past several years, online gaming has taken off and the platform has quickly become a mainstay within social networks. JWT and Zyrtec wanted to take advantage of this trend to offer a more engaging experience for consumers and approached the HAUS team with a unique opportunity: to create a live action, multi-level video game utilizing new technologies that became recently available within YouTube’s brand channel placement. Parks Unleashed™ was Zyrtec’s first foray into social marketing and gamification. It had to be fun, engaging and authentically Zyrtec. The clincher? The first level of the game had to be live in less than 9 weeks. We really pushed the technology from an interactive perspective: cue points were used to play through looped video sequences and to jump to specific shots while time-based menus, arrows, tool-tips, badges and inventory items would appear in the UI. Surprise appearances by Queen Latifah would appear outside of the traditional video player area— something we called a “4th wall breaker”.The overall experience and framework is essentially a game engine. Badges, inventory, game progression, functionality of the mini-games as well as the completion screens are all important aspects of the framework. In addition, the main experience had to be tightly coupled with social media, deep linking, analytics and the different features of the contest while at the same time not violating the Terms and Conditions of YouTube, Google, ePrize, Zyrtec and Johnson and Johnson.By default, Social Media and Pharmaceutical companies do not play well together. The legal rules and regulations for the Pharma industry are stringent, especially when it comes to commentary and claims from individuals associated with the brands and the products. The innovative weaving of the different social media platforms— YouTube, Twitter and Facebook— allows Zyrtec to casually enter into this world, taking advantage of the strengths (viral marketing), while avoiding the pitfalls (comments).
‘Eat, Shop, and Do’ has become the new mantra for the freshly minted online space, it engaging ever— from bloggers with social meleverage to.Success of the game was measured based on a variety of criteria. Tracking and analytics of every aspect of the game was handled through Google Analytics and Atlas. Engagement was high - out of 2.25 million channel views, the average time spent on within the game was over 6 minutes. Metrics aside, perhaps our greatest success was that we overcame a unique set of challenges, pushed the boundaries of technology and helped to redefine the YouTube brand channel experience.