Electronic Arts Inc. today announced a collaboration with consumer products giant Unilever to feature a variety of its most popular consumer brands in EA games. The agreement will first feature a variety of Unilever products in The Sims Social™, each integrated in a unique way to enhance players’ in-game experience while showcasing some of the most popular Unilever brands.
Throughout a year-long campaign, EA and Unilever will roll out new integrations in The Sims Social, each featuring a Unilever product through interactive in-game items that enhance gameplay in fun and rewarding ways. In January, the campaign kicked off with the virtual Dove Hair Spa, where players upgraded their bathrooms and interacted with the spa and Dove® hair care products via a special Care & Repair with Dove® Hair Therapy shower feature rewarding them with “Love” and “Bling.”
“What a great kick off to a year-long, multi-brand relationship between Unilever and EA,” said Dave Madden, Senior Vice President of Global Media Solutions at EA. “In just a two week period, over one million The Sims Social players redeemed the Dove Hair Spa virtual items in their games. It’s a powerful combination of the right game, the right audience and the right gaming platform showing the success that real-world brands can have reaching highly-engaged players.”
Upcoming integrations will feature seasonally relevant Unilever products throughout the year. This spring and summer, Unilever’s ice cream brands — including new Magnum® Mini Ice Cream bars, new Yosicle™ ice pops and Cornetto™ ice cream cones — will help keep The Sims Social players cool. Additional brands will be introduced later, including features that integrate other Unilever North America products into The Sims Social universe.
“As the second biggest advertiser in the world and No. 1 in developing and emerging markets, Unilever takes great pride in our pioneering media efforts,” said Luis Di-Como, SVP Global Media. “We are always looking for new opportunities and innovative ways to engage with our consumers. That’s why we build partnerships that go beyond so-called ‘traditional communication.’ Integrating our brands into popular EA social games like The Sims Social allows us to reach our consumers in a more meaningful and impactful way — where they can have fun and spend time with our brands, thereby creating a deeper emotional connection and loyalty with our brands.”
In addition to the line-up of fun new branded items, each Unilever product integration inside The Sims Social will connect with the next, further enhancing the gameplay experience through rewards and in-game bonuses to players who engage with multiple Unilever products. The Dove hair care campaign will continue in the months to come with an exclusive tab within The Sims Social “Store” giving players access to special Dove hair items and an engaging in-game quest tasking players to interact with items they previously unlocked from The Sims Social store, strategically linking each phase of the campaign.
The Sims Social, one of the most popular and creative social games on Facebook®, allows friends to experiment and play with life. In the game, players build meaningful friendships, budding romances, or scandalous rivalries with other Sims characters. Players can also customize their dream homes in a variety of styles and explore fun and exciting career paths. EA will unveil additional Unilever products in The Sims Social throughout the year, offering players a consistent roll-out of new and exciting items to collect and enjoy. These items will all feature relevant gameplay-enhancing properties that compliment Unilever products, while serving to boost a variety of character attributes and offering activities for Sims characters. With a multitude of gameplay elements tied to real-life, The Sims Social presents unique opportunities for companies such as Unilever to directly engage with gamers to build brand awareness and affinity for its products through social game interactions.
For more information about The Sims Social please visit http://www.thesimssocial.com/ . Press assets for The Sims Social are available at www.info.ea.com .
The EA and Unilever partnership was facilitated by Mindshare Media. For more information on Mindshare Media please visit: http://www.mindshareworld.com/ .
