Buzz Watch: Toyota Yaris Advergame Is Live On Xbox Arcade

Authored by Jay Baage on October 12, 2007 - 8:40am.

In-game advertising took a leap forward with Toyota's Wednesday release of its Xbox Live Arcade Advergame. It is a far cry from the usual in-game billboard; it provides a full scale sponsored game featuring virtual Toyota Yaris cars. Players can download the game for free and get behind the wheel of one and shoot enemies with a tentacle rooted in the car's hood, collecting loose coins, and unlocking a dozen new Xbox Live achievements along the way. Cool, but will it sell any real cars?

The experience of driving a Toyota Yaris in real life does not include shooting stuff with a tentacle rooted in the hood (unless you are using some illegal substance, which is not recommended). However, adding some fun and a gaming experience while promoting Yaris to gamers, is smart marketing.

Not only does it create good-will towards the brand, it also communicates the message that the Yaris is a fun little car for young people. Whether the advergame will actually translate into a boost in sales of real Toyota cars remains to be seen, but it is an interesting experiment.

Toyota is not the first company to produce an entire advergame to promote a product. Burger King has released a trilogy of Xbox and Xbox 360 titles as $3.99 add-ons to combo meals which combined to sell more than 3.2 million copies, according to Gamespot.

Yaris is the first advergame to make it to Live Arcade, but more companies are working on advergames for the downloadable Xbox 360 service. For example, PepsiCo has put up a contest looking for concepts for a Doritos-themed game.

Joakim Baage

Published in DMW Daily, October 12, 2007

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Comments

I am not surprised to read

Submitted by gordman on August 8, 2008 - 6:08am.

I am not surprised to read about this, Toyota has always approached a futurist image and used it in advertising, I am looking forward for what comes next at Toyota. Discount auto parts