The Jaguar advergame

Shall we call it a luxury advergame?
In the UK, Jaguar has launched an online Urban Golf challenge, an advergame created by Skive Creative and seeded by Cake New Media at Eatmail.

Jaguar’s idea is to promote it’s S-Type R model to over 35 affluent males and to build up a database of opt-in contacts. Players who submit their score automatically enter a draw where they have the chance to win a “golfing day” with European Tour player David Howell.

The game is very well done (in Shockwave) from the graphical point of view, but it’s rather complex to play. One might think it isn’t attracting a wide number of players, but the information released by Skive Creative, state the game has had 650,000 plays in the first three weeks.
Anyway, given the target audience Jaguars aims to attract, the success of such initiative won’t be measured just on the number of plays the advergame will get.
The site also allows people to sign-up and receive a newsletter, to request a brochure and to book a test drive, so the focus to evaluate the ROI will rather be on conversion rates on this points.

Golf by definition, is not an easy game, so golf lovers will enjoy this online challenge. The more complex the game, the more time people spend interacting with the Jaguar brand. This advergame looks like a good idea to get in touch with “sophisticated” online gamers with a passion for golf and (probably) higher incomes.