An online game to promote credit cards for a finance company has been designed by a Brighton-based digital media company.
Victoria Real, best known for its contribution to reality TV hit Big Brother, has been chosen by Tesco Personal Finance (TPF) to develop the viral game, which will help the finance company to raise interest in its latest "plastic".
Viral games are becoming more popular among marketeers as they encourage users to pass on the sales message, are easily transferred by email and are easy to host.
The game forms part of an email campaign and will be distributed to the 190,000 people in TPF's database.
It will be hosted on three web sites, Tesco.
com, Tescofinance.com and ivillage.com.
The game involves a supermarket trolley dash in which players race around an online Tesco store filling a shopping basket with items from a pre-determined list in the shortest possible time.
Points are awarded and can be increased along the way by collecting a virtual Tesco credit card.
The shopping list has been designed to emphasise the variety of products in the store.
Links to the game will appear on the Tesco.com web site and can be emailed to a friend.
People will be encouraged to enter by a draw in which winners will be selected from all the entrants and six weekly prizes of 10,000 Clubcard points will be awarded.
The concept behind the game was developed by Victoria Real, which also designed and developed the email campaign promoting it.
Business development director Graham Stevens said: "We've got extensive experience of developing games across all digital platforms. We wanted to develop an interactive game that reflected Tesco's brand values while still remaining fun."
Matt Pritchard, TPF internal marketing manager, said: "One of the main reasons we chose Victoria Real was because of their experience in this field and because they could offer the concept development as well as the creative and technical skills, all in one place.
"Their usability skills were second to none and they've succeeded in developing a game that caters for all our customers."
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