New Zealand kiwifruit marketer Zespri is aiming squarely for the young urban female consumer segment with the launch of a new iPhone game called ‘Kiwi Farm’ in China.
The game app is set in New Zealand and allows players to grow and harvest their own kiwifruit, protecting them from unwanted pests. The game runs an incentivised competition with prizes for players to achieve various milestones. Players who reach the top level of the game go into a competition to win a trip to New Zealand.
Kiwi Farm was made available for free onto the iTunes app store by Zespri last week in concert with developers Mobile Now and Mindshare. The game debuted with a movie-style trailer posted to a number of online media platforms in China, such as Youku, Tudou and QiYi. The game will also be promoted by a series of online and in-app ads.
Zespri’s goal is China’s young urban female sector, which according to market studies by major game developer Zynga are the new “hardcore gamers”, Mindshare said in a statement.
“The key objective of the campaign was for Zespri to nurture a loyal fan base. With that in mind, we feel that the branded game application creates personalised brand experiences for consumers, reinforcing Zespri’s brand essence of healthy, fun-loving, and innovation,” said Zespri’s China marketing manager Rita Chen.
“We also feel that the game helps to reinforce our communication theme, ‘The little bits that make the big difference’.”
