Advergames — Chipotle and Race to Rewards

Advergames are not a new concept, but Chipotle are their latest avo-cates.

The advergame is a simple concept — it is a game specifically designed to advertise another product. An advert-game.

Anyone remember Budwiser’s 1983 advergame Tapper? It was the first arcade game of its type, directly advertising Budweiser’s products to its players. The player must serve delicious Budweiser beer to the patrons that populate his bar, and all customers must be served before they work their way up to the beer kegs. I’m thirst already.

Around the same time the Coca Cola company released Pepsi Invaders — unofficially, at conferences — in which players were asked to defeat the ever-approaching hoards of Pepsi. The drama of it all.

Fast forward 38 years, and the latest offering in the genre is Race to Rewards Exchange — a racing game from Chipotle, to promote their new rewards scheme.

Of course there are many more like it — every Minions mobile game is an advergame for the extended Minions merchandise and movies. But its been a while since we’ve seen a company that doesn’t already have a wealth of colourful characters to draw on create one of these games.

But create they have! The trailer for Chipotle’s Race to Rewards Exchange game is out in all its 16-bit glory, emulating the vintage games that first popularised this style of advertising — and leaning in to a wider interest in vintage games. Like the original Super Mario games, this advergame cannot be played on a console, but rather is available to players via desktop and mobile devices through a brand microsite.

As well as being entertaining, these kind of adverts seem to work! According to the Journal of Advertising’s recent research entitled ‘The Gamification of Branded Content: A Meta-Analysis of Advergame Effects’, these sorts of games serve to deepen the connection between brand and consumer. They are certainly played more times than a traditional video advert would be watched, and if the game is interesting or difficult enough, may provide prolonged exposure to the brand. Or at least give you something to do while you wait for your burrito.