Free Food for Playing Pong
9 June 2011: McDonald’s in Sweden is garnering plenty of attention for its latest interactive billboard that utilizes mobile technology to give away prizes of food.
Customers in Stockholm engage with McDonald’s in a game of Pong by visiting the “Pick n’ Play” website on their smartphone. The phone’s GPS technology picks up the player’s location and the game is queued up for play. The smartphone becomes the controller for the game while the billboard becomes the main screen. The player must last 30 seconds against the computer and the difficulty level increases the longer the game lasts. PLayers who last the 30 seconds win a digital coupon that can be used to redeem their desired food prize at a nearby McDonald’s.
The Pong billboard is not McDonald’s first foray into interactive advertising. A year ago, McDonald’s set up a street billboard challenge that invited consumers to point their cellphone cameras and snap pictures of items such as coffee, pie or sundaes, as they whiz by on a mounted screen. At the end of the challenge, the screen shows the way to the nearest McDonald’s where consumers can claim the items for free.
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