Ford & White Collar-’Chasing the Shadow’

Best Use of Games, Contests, and Sweepstakes

Ford & White Collar – ‘Chasing the Shadow’
Agency: Team Detroit
Client: Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company partnered with USA Network in 2009 on the new television series, White Collar. The partnership extended across multiple media platforms, including a commercial premiere, a :60 first break, vignettes and integration of the Ford Taurus Limited into the series.

Ford also extended the brand partnership through a game called ‘White Collar: Chasing the Shadow’. The game offered fans the opportunity to help main characters Peter and Neal solve a new White Collar crime each week and enter for a chance to win an all new Ford Taurus Limited at the game’s completion.

Chasing the Shadow featured first-person game play, live action HD video and immersive flash gaming challenges, while utilizing the Ford Taurus to track down a criminal mastermind.

Over seven weeks, the game introduced new features and techniques to entice viewers to come back and play over and over with different experiences. Each weekly task required piecing together clues and calling cards to solve the challenge with the end goal of identifying the White Shadow. The Ford Taurus Limited played a key role in the player’s experience throughout the game.

Players who completed each weekly challenge were entered to win a mission prize package, including Neil’s “gentleman’s bag,” complete with everything needed to become a White Collar character themselves. Players who completed all seven challenges were entered to win the ultimate Grand Prize, an all-new 2010 Ford Taurus Limited.

The campaign was promoted through online media, search, social media and on usanetwork.com. Online media included co-branded displays, branded rails, White Collar pages, and a branded URL, chasingtheshadow.usanetwork.com. Additional messaging was placed in e-newsletters, homepage promos, weekly e-blasts and logo inclusion on the show’s homepage.

The campaign generated an average of 18,941 weekly visits, with 70.3 page views per visit, or 14 million page views. A total of 60.8% of all registered users entered the sweepstakes.

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