Tic Tac is building on its large-scale campaign to make the consumer-packaged goods brand more interactive with a new mobile gaming initiative.

Tic Tac is using a mobile game ad unit with rich media to drive awareness of the brand and its Viewr application. The ads are running within Elle?s mobile site.

"Shake It Up, the Tic Tac brand?s first-ever 360 marketing effort, features a unique series of online and offline experiences for consumers and influencers ranging from print, outdoor, TV, online, mobile, and social media engagement to experiential events," said Noah Szporn, category manager for Tic Tac mints at Ferrero U.S.A. Inc., Somerset, NJ.  

"The campaign?s overall goal is to encourage Millenials to break away from the mundane and explore new, unconventional ways of doing daily activities," he said.

Race for engagement
The copy for the mobile ads scrolls. One set of copy reads, ?Most people only drive forward.? Another set of copy encourages users to shake it up by tapping on the ad.

The mobile ads expand to feature a race car track. In order to win the game, consumers have to steer a car through five lanes of traffic successfully for 15 seconds by moving to the left and right.

After the game ends, users are encouraged to tap to download the Viewr app. In this case, the ad was accessed from an iPhone device, leading users to Apple?s App Store.

The mobile ads are part of a broader marketing effort that Tic Tac rolled out earlier this year to engage with digitally savvy users.

In addition to the mobile game ad units being used to promote the app, Tic Tac is also using out-of-home, print and transit advertising (see story).

The ads encourage users to download an app

Mobile engagement
For a campaign such as Tic Tac?s that is so heavily drawn into engagement, using a mobile ad unit that incorporates gaming is a great way to give consumers a sneak peek at what to expect if they download the app.

Additionally, using an interactive unit to bolster app downloads gives users another level of interaction versus a simple click-to-download ad.

The Tic Tac ad units are the latest in a string of in-app mobile gaming advertisements being used by brands.

For example, Toyota recently used rich media to let users learn more about a car by finishing a puzzle game that let users slide the last piece into the game (see story).

Other brands such as Coca-Cola and McDonald?s have also used mobile gaming to their advantage recently to boost their advertising initiatives.

"Milliennials are known as a digital generation who can?t live without their mobile devices," Mr. Szporn said.

"By listening to our consumers, we learned that they wanted to be surprised and entertained," he said.

"The mobile games were integrated with the ad units to excite our Millennial audience and give them a fresh perspective on their everyday routines."

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York