Audi and The Art of the A3ist
The launch of an Internet game, ”The Audi A3, The Art of the A3ist,” took consumers on a wild ”web-ride” into an alternative reality and created buzz that turned into sales. The Game featured six new Audi A3s that contained coded plans for the largest art heist in history. One car contained the key to decrypting the information hidden in all the others.
As the drama unfolded in real time over the course of three months, the A3 became the most sought-after car in North America. The game was covered in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Adweek, Financial Times, Advertising Age, Forbes.com, Boston Globe, VH1, P2P via INTENT and blogs.
Customers didn't just watch the game; they actually played a role in it and created phenomenal results for Audi and their advertising agency McKinney:
- More than 46,728,191PR impressions were generated.
- Approximately 500,000 consumers participated in the story, 18,000,000 via P2P and some 2,000 online discussions occurred around the heist.
- New car leads increased 87.5 percent through audiusa.com in the first two weeks of the launch with 10,000-plus leads sent to dealers and 16,000-plus A3 shopping indicator actions were recorded, including 13,363 A3 quick-quote requests.
- 30 percent of all available A3s were sold in three months, which met aggressive sales goals.