The Contiki Mixandmatcher was a two week advergame co-promotion for House of Travel and Contiki New Zealand.

Developed from the ground up and exclusively for Facebook’s unique social platform, the app combined satisfying and exciting gameplay, truly inherent social integration, and a sense of humour that gelled nicely with the 18-35 year old market.

Users who installed the application on Facebook were invited to ‘spin’ a slot-machine style interface, complete with custom dynamic animations and soundtrack. Each spin would randomly “mix-and-match” a prize combination of: a) one Contiki travel package for two; b) one of their Facebook friends to travel with; and c) one classic Kiwi bonus prize.

The game maximised engagement and excitement by limiting the number of possible entries per player, and forcing players to make the psychologically challenging decision to accept a random combination, or to spin again (and again and again ...) for the perfect match.

Much of the success of The Mixandmatcher can be attributed to a unusually tight integration with Facebook. The game imported each player’s list of Facebook friends, including their profile pictures, and used this resource to build a personalised set of entry possibilities right in to the game mechanics.

By including consumers’ Facebook friends not only was the experience made more interesting for each player, but it also created a compelling reason to share and discuss the game with their friends on Facebook. 27% of all competition entries resulted in a user-generated Facebook wall post or comment. These conversations added social credibility to the promotion, dramatically increased reach and brand impressions, and provided a natural viral mechanism within Facebook.
 

The Mixandmatcher delivered a truly personal, truly social experience to each player.

Although limited to an 18-35yo demographic, the promotion collected 36,218 competition entries over 14 days, and resulted in more than 5,000 new Facebook ‘likes’ (fans) for the brand Facebook pages.

But our best measure of quality of engagement is the total of 9,716 wall posts and comments that players and their friends made endorsing the competition on Facebook. Posts were completely optional, so this level of user-generated content creation is indicative of a fun and memorable experience for thousands of players and their Facebook friends, and represents fantastic value for Contiki and House of Travel