Honda has launched an integrated campaign in mobile social game SongPop to drive awareness for the new Honda Civic and tap into the excitement players have for music.

The campaign includes a branded playlist on SongPop featuring music from the artist in new commercials for the Civic. The campaign launched on Feb. 10 to engage players during the Grammy Awards ceremony.

?Honda is launching in conjunction with the 55^th Grammy Awards in order to drive awareness among social gamers who love music and trivia,? said Todd Bowman, chief revenue officer at MediaBrix. ?Honda is teaming up with MediaBrix to run a social gaming advertising campaign on SongPop in order to engage gamers with Honda?s messaging during this seminal music event.

?Social gaming represents a seismic shift in media consumption, with engagement numbers range anywhere from 10-30 percent of overall time spent on media,? he said.

?On mobile and tablets, people spend more time gaming than almost any other activity or with any other type of app. Additionally, music has always been a key pillar for Honda, so it is a huge win for the brand to be able to thematically and demographically align with the number one social game of the year, SongPop.

Honda partnered with MediaBrix for the mobile social gaming campaign.

Name of the game
SongPop is a popular social and mobile game that was developed by FreshPlanet and has more than 60 million players. With such a large audience, marketers are looking to the game as a marketing opportunity.

For example, LivingSocial recently ran interstitial ads between game levels in the SongPop iPhone app to drive downloads. The effort also incorporated game currencies that consumers could earn by watching a short video (see story).

The Honda campaign launched on Feb. 10 and runs through Feb. 14. It leverages SongPop to reach the Honda Civic target audience on Facebook, mobile phones and tablets.

Three Civic models - Sedan, Si Coupe and Hybrid - will be featured in the social gaming video ads. Honda will drive users to its official site to drive awareness and educate users about the 2013 Civic models.

Breakthrough moments
Through the branded playlist, Honda will become an integral part of the game play, reaching the large, dedicated SongPop user base. Honda playlists created on the mobile and tablet apps and the Facebook game will be shared on users Facebook Timelines, extending the reach of the campaign.

?With MediaBrix, Honda can unlock scarce mobile impressions at breakthrough moments when Honda's targets and prospects are most engrossed in game play,? Mr. Bowman said.

?MediaBrix?s immersive approach to brand advertising delivers great results because the user understands the origin and intent of the message,? he said.

Honda is the first automotive company to feature a branded playlist on SongPop.

The SongPop effort is part of an integrated advertising campaign supporting the 2013 Honda Civic.

?Social gaming advertising has come a long way in the past few years,? Mr. Bowman said. ?It?s not just about scale anymore, but now it offers content that users are really connected to, which is what matters most.

?Today, you are as likely to be a social gamer as a Facebook user,? he said. ?Most of all, since marketers? ads are seen and appreciated - much like the early days of TV - there is a genuine gratitude effect on behalf of the users."

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York