Plastic fantastic

Virtual band, the Gorillaz, have slotted in nicely at Matmi.  We’re both cybernetic organisms who inhabit our own worlds as well as reality (or is that the other way round?), and we both love the bizarre – as long as it’s brilliant too.

Brilliant seems to be right – it’s helping Gorillaz to slot nicely into our trophy cabinet as well.  Starting with a #1 spot in the App Store (UK & Ireland) in the first week of its release, the cutting-edge online/mobile advergame, “Escape to Plastic Beach” went on to win the Best Artist Promotion category at the 2010 BT Digital Music Awards in September.

Let’s remind ourselves (cos it was pretty awesome); we created 2 free online games leading to a third paid-for game on the iPhone & iPad to promote Gorillaz “Plastic Beach album.  Why?

Dan Duncombe, VP of Digital at EMI UK, explains:  “The free games are designed to draw users into Plastic Beach as a lot of these gamers won’t know who Gorillaz are or what the story is about.  There is a whole audience who, through traditional marketing or even digital marketing, we haven’t been able to hit.  The opportunity through online gaming is huge.”

Interviewing Dan in May this year, Music Week observes: “Games can be used to unlock whole new channels into elusive demographics.  The [Escape to Plastic Beach] game is now seeing an average dwell time of 12 minutes among an audience that was previously unreachable.”

Brilliant, bizarre – and if you get to the App Store fast enough, you can pick the game up at sale price to see what the fuss is all about!

Enjoy.  It’s Matmi magic in plastic fantastic.

October 2010