• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 25, 2007

Seeing a golden opportunity to engage the young and the hip, brands are increasingly working video games into the marketing mix. To that end, magazine publisher Future US has created a racing game spotlighting Toyota's Scion and its highly customizable exterior.

The 'Build It, Race It, Own It' campaign, slated to run from July to the end of September, will feature a microsite where visitors can personalize every element of their cars--from rims to spoilers and ground kits--and then race them against others' creations. At the end of the summer, the person with the fastest time with win a real Scion.

The campaign "reinforces that our brand is all about customization," said Adrian Si, Scion interactive marketing manager. "Creativity is part of Scion's philosophy, and this game allows enthusiasts to be imaginative."

Scion has consistently served as Toyota's guinea pig for untried brand initiatives. To that end, Scion has been featured on Second Life, the most populated virtual world online, and has its own broadband radio channels.

Earlier this year, Scion ran a pre-launch campaign for its 2008 xB exclusively online, which featured its own virtual world. There, visitors could visit six virtual locales where they could watch videos and play multiplayer games, among other activities.

To drive traffic to new Scion microsite, Future US is running ads across its network of print and Web publications, including GamesRadar.com, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer, Maximum PC, Revolver, Future Snowboarding, and Mac|Life.

The campaign revolves chiefly around GamesRadar.com, Future US's gaming site, which it claims ranks as the Web's third-most-popular site devoted to "hardcore gaming"--as opposed to "casual games" like tic-tac-toe, which dominate sites like Yahoo Games.

Either way, GamesRadar.com attracted 2.5 million unique visitors in May, according to comScore. Fox Interactive Media's IGN Entertainment/Games led the field that month with 8.9 million unique visitors, followed by the CNET Networks-owned GameSpot with 7.3 million unique visitors.

Simon Whitcombe, publishing director of the games group at Future US, said he is blown away by the interest in gaming being shown presently by non-gaming-related advertisers.

"When we launched GamesRadar about a year ago, I estimated that our non-endemic [ad dollars] would run at 20%," said Whitcombe. "Since then, we've seen triple-digit growth in non-endemic, which now makes up at least 40% all ad dollars."

When asked how much a similar campaign would cost an advertiser, Whitcombe wouldn't get more specific than between $200,000 and $1 million.

To heighten the hipness of the experience, the game's dashboard will feature an audio player streaming tracks from emerging artists that work with Scion.

Added Whitcombe: "If you want to reach young males, a video game strategy is as important today as a music strategy was when I was a kid."

Future US is also using CD-ROMS, included with copies of Maximum PC and PC Gamer, to promote the Scion microsite.