EA Launches First Global Multi-Brand Media Campaign in Video Games for Unilever
Published: April 4, 2012
Dove® Hair Care Products and Unilever Ice Cream Brands to be Featured in The Sims Social
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apr. 4, 2012– Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) 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 keepThe 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 Socialallows 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 insideThe 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 Socialpresents 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.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company’s game franchises are offered as both packaged goods products and online services delivered through Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets. EA has more than 100 million registered players and operates in 75 countries.
In fiscal 2011, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.6 billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for critically acclaimed, high-quality blockbuster franchises such as The Sims™, Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer, Need for Speed™, Battlefield™, and Mass Effect™. More information about EA is available at http://info.ea.com.
About Unilever
Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with operations in over 100 countries and sales in 190. Consumers buy 170 billion Unilever packs around the world every year, and our products are used over two billion times a day. We have more than 171,000 employees, and generated annual sales of €46.5 billion in 2011.
Working to create a better future every day, we help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others. Our portfolio includes some of the world’s best known and most loved brands including thirteen €1 billion brands, and global leadership in most categories in which we operate. The portfolio features iconic brands such as: Knorr, Hellmann’s, Lipton, Dove, Vaseline, Magnum, TRESemmé, Degree and St. Ives.
Unilever’s ambition is to double the size of our business, whilst reducing our overall environmental impact (including sourcing, consumer use and disposal). We are also committed to doing what we can to improve health, nutrition and hygiene, with a target to help more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being, as well as sourcing all our agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020. All of these goals are itemised in around 60 time-based commitments in our Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.
Unilever has led the Food Producers sector in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes for 13 consecutive years. We are included in the FTSE4Good Index Series and attained a top environmental score of 5, leading to inclusion in the FTSE4Good Environmental Leaders Europe 40 Index. In 2011 Unilever led the Climate Counts Company Scorecard and was named #1 in the list of Global Corporate Sustainability Leaders according to the latest survey findings from GlobeScan Inc. and SustainAbility Ltd.