An interactive promotion launched by agency Lowe New York for a global client hopes to become a hot potato for Facebook members—in a good way.

The campaign, driven by a downloadable application, involves a giveaway that rewards players for being the one caught holding onto a mysterious “Life Changing Box” when it opens. The game will hand out 20 prizes with values from $400 to $14,000.

Brand sponsorship of the game is being concealed in the early stage, but will be revealed as the promotion moves toward its end date of July 14, 2008. That will coincide with the full launch of the Web site www.LifeChangingBox.com.

Right now, visitors to the site simply get a chance to guess what’s in the box and can download the Facebook app. Clues provided by Lowe PR surrounding the site include references to consumer electronics, specifically HDTV, and Major League Baseball. One of Lowe New York’s clients is Sharp Electronics, maker of the Aquos HD TV line, and some comments on forums such as Digg have already suggested that as the brand behind the campaign.

The game involves 10 virtual boxes and is played in rounds. Players enter a round by using one of 24 “touches” available to them each day of the game. A box jumps randomly to one of the players signed into the round and remains with that player for the duration of the round—which may be anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours, again randomly determined.

If the box doesn’t open in that round, a new round begins, and players need to use another touch to enter. And since there can be up to 48 rounds per day for the 33 days of the promotion, players will need to strategize their entries to maximize their chances of winning.

Players can invite their friends to download the application and play as well. In fact, if an invitee wins the prize during a round, the player who sent the invitation will win a duplicate prize.

“We are excited about this groundbreaking contest we are bringing to the Facebook platform,” Lowe New York chairman Mark Wnek said in a statement. “[The forward-to-a-friend prize system] will add significantly to the viral nture of this program while increasing the level of both awareness and engagement with LifeChangingBox.com.”

Lowe New York, a division of Lowe Worldwide and part of Interpublic Group, has a client list that includes Perdue Chicken and XM Radio in addition to Sharp.

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