Asda And Landfill Bill

In the viral newsgroup today, Matmi brings you a new game from Asda, Landfill Bill. It’s a target game – throw your recycling into the right bin – with a message. Asda are trying to promote recycling, with a commitment to end landfill waste from stores by 2010.

Screenshot from site

The game itself is done well, as is usual from matmi, with the ability to embed. It’s finishes with a good educational message, showing how much landfill waste has been created whilst playing. But I question a couple of things. The first is the the statement in the meail “the first British Supermarket to embrace the power of viral marketing.” Is it? I’m not sure. I’d concede that it may be the first one to try advergames, but viral marketing? To me this means creating something that spreads via word of mouth, physically or online. I’d regard what Sainsbury has done with Jamie Oliver to have a strong element of viral marketing in it.

The second area that seems missing is some integration with the rest of the stuff that Asda is doing. If you click through to the Asda site, there seems to be noway back from there to the game, it’s not been promoted as part of the Asda offering. Also, you can embed the game, but how about letting some more of the content free, how about a widget that can be used to show people how much landfill there is, or some videos on the Asda site that can be shared. There’s a lot more that could be done here to push the message and I think the game is not enough.