appssavvy promotes film via Zynga Mafia Wars

Leading up to "Public Enemies" DVD release, Zynga engages mafia game fans with interest

What do you get when you bring Universal Studios Home Entertainment, social gaming startup Zynga, and social media sales team appssavvy together? Some very well-thought out home video advertising.

In order to promote the December 2009 DVD and Blu-Ray release of last year's big crime film, Public Enemies, appssavvy tapped into a strong community of customers that would likely be excited about a crime movie based on a game they play online: Mafia Wars. One of Zynga's most high-profile games, with 25 million monthly active Facebook users alone, Mafia Wars lets users create a mob family and try their hand at running an imperial gangster's paradise.

The campaign lasted only a week, but in that time appssavvy calculated that almost 55 million interactions took place. On top of that, interactions posted to the news feed reached a count of 7.6 million, which the sales company is assuming to amount to almost a billion viral interactions.

"The opportunities for marketers to engage with people in social media are vast but they have to be done in ways that are relevant to consumers as the Public Enemies campaign demonstrated," said Scott Koenigsberg, General Manager of Mafia Wars. "The metrics were off the charts in every KPI (Key Performance Indicator) exemplifying not only the relevance, but the success of adding value to the Mafia War game experience. We are excited about exploring more opportunities as we look ahead to enhance Zynga games through advertising partnerships."

The biggest news recently from Zynga came Wednesday, when the company reintroduced virtual currency offers back into its games on Facebook and MySpace.

Two months after all promotions were taken offline due to the presence of highly questionable and controversial scammy offers, Zynga has cleaned up its act by promising to now adhere to a "strict set of standards for content and user experience." At this time, the only promotions on Zynga games are coming from Netflix, Discover Card, Blockbuster, HSBC Direct, Gamefly, Book of the Month Club, SnapFish and The New York Times.

While the social gaming startup is clearly not now jumping hastily into any new partnerships, it's nice to see the company experimenting with and finding success down more creative avenues, like this partnership with Universal Studios and appssavvy.