Toronto-based Corus Entertainment has kept its promise to gamers.
It’s launching TheBigRip.com, a new MMOG game created by Quebec-based Frima Studio, which lets users play games, interact and customize characters in a monitored online environment called GalaXseeds.
In this parallel universe, tween ‘seedizens’ can join one of four clans and compete to maintain the fragile balance of the universe. Every seedizen lives in a pod and every pod has a garden, where players can grow endless combinations of plants that when bought or sold advance players in the game. There’s a safe chat system built in for kids around the world to interact with each other in real time.
Corus will promote TheBigRip.com with online banner ads at YTV.com (launched Feb. 14). Banner ads will soon be running on the company’s websites for W Network, CMT and Corus Radio, as well as its teen-targeted broadband radio station BoomBoxBaby.com.
On air, TheBigRip.com will get promotion with 30-second spots and 10-second billboards, and hosts of YTV’s after-school block The Zone will cover the initiative in special segments. TheBigRip.com is also being supported in the spring issue (March) of Corus’ kids magazine Whoa! with a page of editorial content.
This is only the first of Toronto-based Corus Entertainment’s MMOGs. The company is developing other branded worlds that will mix its on-air characters with online interactive audiences. Corus announced the development of Constellation – a group of MMOG extensions of its kids 8-12 brands based on insights gathered for its YTV Tween Report – last fall. At the time, Corus Entertainment president/CEO John Cassaday promised the venture would ‘provide clients with unique and integrated sponsorship opportunities.’
Corus Television VP/GM Lucie Lalumiere tells MiC, ‘There will be sponsorship on the site (TheBigRip.com), and we expect to be in a position to share sponsorship information in the coming weeks. Sponsorship will include fully-integrated campaigns that leverage the multiple platforms Corus delivers, and will reflect the same high level of creativity and innovation Corus is known for.
‘This initiative will provide highly-customized opportunities on the site as well as unique integration opportunities within the game itself, providing clients with the ability to connect with their audience in truly innovative ways,’ she concludes.
