Dove® Hair Care Products and Unilever Ice Cream Brands to be
Featured in The Sims Social
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) today announced a collaboration with
consumer products giant Unilever to feature a variety of its most
popular consumer brands in EA games. The agreement will first feature a
variety of Unilever products in The Sims Social™, each
integrated in a unique way to enhance players' in-game experience while
showcasing some of the most popular Unilever brands.
Throughout a year-long campaign, EA and Unilever will roll out new
integrations in The Sims Social, each featuring a Unilever
product through interactive in-game items that enhance gameplay in fun
and rewarding ways. In January, the campaign kicked off with the virtual
Dove Hair Spa, where players upgraded their bathrooms and interacted
with the spa and Dove® hair care products via a special Care & Repair
with Dove® Hair Therapy shower feature rewarding them with "Love" and
"Bling."
"What a great kick off to a year-long, multi-brand relationship between
Unilever and EA," said Dave Madden, Senior Vice President of Global
Media Solutions at EA. "In just a two week period, over one million The
Sims Social players redeemed the Dove Hair Spa virtual items in
their games. It's a powerful combination of the right game, the right
audience and the right gaming platform showing the success that
real-world brands can have reaching highly-engaged players."
Upcoming integrations will feature seasonally relevant Unilever products
throughout the year. This spring and summer, Unilever's ice cream brands
— including new Magnum® Mini Ice Cream bars, new Yosicle™ ice pops and
Cornetto™ ice cream cones — will help keep The Sims Social
players cool. Additional brands will be introduced later, including
features that integrate other Unilever North America products into The
Sims Social universe.
"As the second biggest advertiser in the world and No. 1 in developing
and emerging markets, Unilever takes great pride in our pioneering media
efforts," said Luis Di-Como, SVP Global Media. "We are always looking
for new opportunities and innovative ways to engage with our consumers.
That's why we build partnerships that go beyond so-called ‘traditional
communication.' Integrating our brands into popular EA social games like The
Sims Social allows us to reach our consumers in a more meaningful
and impactful way — where they can have fun and spend time with our
brands, thereby creating a deeper emotional connection and loyalty with
our brands."
In addition to the line-up of fun new branded items, each Unilever
product integration inside The Sims Social will connect with the
next, further enhancing the gameplay experience through rewards and
in-game bonuses to players who engage with multiple Unilever products.
The Dove hair care campaign will continue in the months to come with an
exclusive tab within The Sims Social "Store" giving players
access to special Dove hair items and an engaging in-game quest tasking
players to interact with items they previously unlocked from The Sims
Social store, strategically linking each phase of the campaign.
The Sims Social, one of the most popular and creative social
games on Facebook®, allows friends to experiment and play with life. In
the game, players build meaningful friendships, budding romances, or
scandalous rivalries with other Sims characters. Players can also
customize their dream homes in a variety of styles and explore fun and
exciting career paths. EA will unveil additional Unilever products in The
Sims Social throughout the year, offering players a consistent
roll-out of new and exciting items to collect and enjoy. These items
will all feature relevant gameplay-enhancing properties that compliment
Unilever products, while serving to boost a variety of character
attributes and offering activities for Sims characters. With a multitude
of gameplay elements tied to real-life, The Sims Social presents
unique opportunities for companies such as Unilever to directly engage
with gamers to build brand awareness and affinity for its products
through social game interactions.
For more information about The Sims Social please visit http://www.thesimssocial.com/.
Press assets for The Sims Social are available at www.info.ea.com.
The EA and Unilever partnership was facilitated by Mindshare Media. For
more information on Mindshare Media please visit: http://www.mindshareworld.com/.
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) is a global leader in digital interactive
entertainment. The Company's game franchises are offered as both
packaged goods products and online services delivered through
Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and
tablets. EA has more than 100 million registered players and operates in
75 countries.
In fiscal 2011, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.6 billion.
Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for
critically acclaimed, high-quality blockbuster franchises such as The
Sims™, Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer, Need for Speed™, Battlefield™, and Mass
Effect™. More information about EA is available at http://info.ea.com.
About Unilever
Unilever is one of the world's leading suppliers of fast moving consumer
goods with operations in over 100 countries and sales in 190. Consumers
buy 170 billion Unilever packs around the world every year, and our
products are used over two billion times a day. We have more than
171,000 employees, and generated annual sales of €46.5 billion in 2011.
Working to create a better future every day, we help people feel good,
look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are
good for them and good for others. Our portfolio includes some of the
world's best known and most loved brands including thirteen €1 billion
brands, and global leadership in most categories in which we operate.
The portfolio features iconic brands such as: Knorr, Hellmann's, Lipton,
Dove, Vaseline, Magnum, TRESemmé, Degree and St. Ives.
Unilever's ambition is to double the size of our business, whilst
reducing our overall environmental impact (including sourcing, consumer
use and disposal). We are also committed to doing what we can to improve
health, nutrition and hygiene, with a target to help more than a billion
people take action to improve their health and well-being, as well as
sourcing all our agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020. All of
these goals are itemised in around 60 time-based commitments in our
Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.
Unilever has led the Food Producers sector in the Dow Jones
Sustainability World Indexes for 13 consecutive years. We are included
in the FTSE4Good Index Series and attained a top environmental score of
5, leading to inclusion in the FTSE4Good Environmental Leaders Europe 40
Index. In 2011 Unilever led the Climate Counts Company Scorecard and was
named #1 in the list of Global Corporate Sustainability Leaders
according to the latest survey findings from GlobeScan Inc. and
SustainAbility Ltd.
For more information about Unilever and its brands, please visit www.unilever.com.
The Sims, The Sims Social and Need for Speed are trademarks of
Electronic Arts Inc. Battlefield is a trademark of EA Digital Illusions
CE AB. Mass Effect is a trademark of EA International (Studio and
Publishing) Ltd. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Electronic Arts
John Reseburg, 650-628-3601
jreseburg@ea.com
Denny
Chiu, 650-628-9051
dchiu@ea.com
Source: Electronic Arts Inc.
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