Jay Wolfe Toyota Race for the Ride with SCVNGR
On July 11, 2010, Jay Wolfe Toyota built the “Jay Wolfe Race for the Ride” trek on SCVNGR all through downtown St. Louis. The trek had people going places, doing challenges and earning points on the mobile system known as SCVNGR. The challenges asked people to solve location-based riddles, take photos and more! The top scorer at the end of the day came away with a brand new 2010 Toyota Corolla!
The video below shows pieces of this trek in action with participants wearing as uniforms red t-shirts printed by Jay Wolfe Toyota and local sponsors. Those participating can be seen scavenging around the city of St. Louis looking for clues and reporting their findings using their Droids and iPhones, the two platforms designed for use with the SCVNGR system. In the end, the event drew in about 500 participants.
Jay Wolfe Toyota Race for the Ride from SCVNGR on Vimeo.
This type of marketing is certainly new to automotive in that Jay Wolfe Toyota was the firm’s FIRST retail dealership to sponsor such an event. SCVNGR has been doing similar events with other businesses throughout the U.S., primarily with jewelers.
Some of the key elements to this type of marketing are:
- The Build Up: Everyone is talking about participating in the event to complete for a NEW CAR.
- The Action: Players interact with the dealership’s sales and service departments in a truly fun and engaging way.
- The Result: Acquisition of new customers to the service department as well as car sales from qualifies buyers.
The investment for this is comparable to a traditional low-level advertising campaign with your local newspaper or television station for a week or two, plus the dealership must co-op with its OEM to give away a vehicle.
Some might argue that the ROI is not there, but this could be a cop-out for not being familiar with such a marketing initiative. Dealers are still dropping similar amounts of coin on traditional advertising initiatives and are unable to gage their successes in most cases, so you can’t put much stock into that concern. In no case are dealerships able to achieve the deep levels of brand recognition and engagement that a SCVNGR treasure hunt can achieve. Plus, the end result achieves far more value to everybody involved, including the local community, plus you get a nice vide that can be used in the years to come.
If you are interested in exploring SCVNGR for your dealership, call us at 877-873-0583 or fill in the form below to request a free consultation to see if this is something for you and your dealership.
