In breaking in-game advertising news, Cascadian Farm, which started selling organic crops grown in the Upper Skagit Valley in Washington State nearly 40 years ago, has teamed with FarmVille, the incredibly popular virtual farming game inside of Facebook.
According to The New York Times:
FarmVille will, for the first time, offer its pretend farmers a specific food brand. Players will be able to plant an organic blueberry crop from Cascadian Farm, a subsidiary of General Mills. The objective is for FarmVille users to learn about organic farming and green living, and at the same time, earn additional points to grow fruits and vegetables or raise animals on their virtual farms.
This is FarmVille’s “first branded, in-game crop integration, and we chose Cascadian Farm to offer our users something that would benefit them online and offline,” said Vish Makhijani, senior vice president for business operations at Zynga, the company that also created Mafia Wars and FrontierVille, two other popular Facebook games.
Also available on the FarmVille site will be a $1 coupon for Cascadian Farm products, which can be redeemed in a brick-and-mortar store, said Melissa Eccles, digital creative director for the project at Sterling-Rice Group in Boulder, Colo.
About 60 million people play each month, so its easy to see why brands want to insert themselves into the faux-agricultural action.
You can learn more about the promotion on the brand’s Facebook page.
