NEW YORK ? An executive from Geely Automobile's Volvo Cars speaking at ad: tech said that a recent in-application virtual goods campaign helped give its brand a facelift.

The automaker?s agency Media Contacts and mobile/social marketing specialist appssavvy helped to power the location-based campaign, which delivered Volvo-branded messaging and virtual goods to people checking in to competing dealerships in Booyah?s MyTown application for Apple?s iPhone. The results exceed Volvo?s expectations.

?Volvo?s objective was to build buzz around the release of the new Volvo S60 and promote ?naughty? branding,? said Linda Gangeri, manager of national advertising at Volvo Cars of North America, Rockleigh, NJ. ?We?re well-known for safety, but we?re about more than just safety.

?We absolutely as part of our overall brand strategy are putting a portion of our media spend on testing and learning and either optimizing the campaigns or moving on to something else,? she said. ?When it came to launching our new car, the S60, we looked at virtual goods and mobile/social gaming as a way to promote our new performance sedan segment and change our brand perception among consumers.

?Embedding branded items and exposing them to these people was successful?you have to put your brand out there and let people come to you, which is what we did.?

Virtual goods move the needle
Booyah claims that its MyTown iPhone application has more than 2 million users.

The Volvo campaign achieved 5.3 million check-ins, 1.3 million branded virtual goods were delivered and MyTown users clicked more than 20,000 times to see the S60 in action, representing a click-through rate of 1.5 percent.

A virtual good is like a real good except that it is not real?it is intangible, a virtual product or enhancement that is used in online and mobile communities and games.

While virtual goods are not real per se, what is real is the fact that people are spending a ton of money on them.

Virtual goods can provide benefits to consumers and branded virtual goods create positive associations between those benefits and brands in the minds of consumers, per appssavvy.

Volvo is not the first brand to run such a campaign.

Apparel and accessories retailer H&M delivered 10.6 million branded impressions to mobile users checking into venues in the MyTown location-based mobile social game (see story).

The Travel Channel also partnered with Booyah to promote ?Food Wars? episodes via MyTown (see story).

Powermat rewarded consumers for in-application activity and interacting with its brand in MyTown (see story).

Consumer purchase intent increased by almost 32 percent due to exposure to branded virtual goods, according to a July study by appssavvy.

The study found that branded virtual goods increased mobile ad awareness from 60.1 percent to 74.2 percent. In addition, aided brand awareness increased from 44.5 percent to 69.8 percent (see story).

?The key to leveraging a program with MyTown or Zynga, you have to rethink the relationship between the delivery and reception of advertising,? said Chris Cunningham, cofounder/CEO of appssavvy, New York. ?Social gaming and connecting to communities in the form of applications requires the biggest fundamental shift in advertising tactics, which we?ve been advocating for quite some time, and brands are supporting that.

?Marketers can?t enter social media without a new playbook?take everything you?ve ever learned and throw it out the window,? he said. ?You have to provide value to people, create interactions with people and build relationships over time.

?Virtual goods allow marketers to achieve scale, engagement and real results?branded virtual goods move the needle on purchase intent and brand awareness, and there are real dollars being spent by brands because they?re seeing ROI.?

Final Take