Take the “fire test” and win a great prize… maybe

Once in a while I can tell you about a successful online advertising in Italy. It�s the story of Chrysler promoting its Crossfire coup�, with �La prova del fuoco� campaign (in English it should be something like �The fire test�). As explained on DailyMedia, it consists of virtual travel on the Web through an �initiation� path which develops in four steps: Reveiling Chamber�, �Morphing Identity�, �Burning Evidence� e �Fire Walking�. Users will be driven to the Web site www.laprovadelfuoco.it with a series of online ads (Pop-Up Pop-Under, Intestitial, Expanding banner and 123.000 Dem) exposed on the main Italian portals (Virgilio, Libero, Repubblica.it, Msn, and Tiscali). Everyone who register on the site automatically joins a competition to win a full week-end test drive of the new Crossfire that will be launched on November 15th. The campaign, which has been online for a month and will last until December 1st, has driven 70.000 people to the Web site with 10.000 registrations: numbers that sound exciting on the Italian market.
The campaign idea (developed by the Italian agency Xister) is extremely original, and is based on the �interaction design� concept, which allows a deep and intense brand experience while browsing the Web site. However one has the feeling there�s something missing in this campaign: the prize. If you invest so much (money) in creativity and interactivity people might expect more than a test drive as a reward for their attention.