How a Mobile Interactive Board Game Impacts Mobile Marketing

I caught a bit of the Kim Komando radio show this weekend and she was talking about a new board game by Hasbro that includes text messaging as part of the game. Turns out it is an old board game with a new twist. CLUE: Secrets and Spies Edition includes a live text messaging feature that makes the game mobile interactive. (Read press release about it here.)

During the course of the game players use their own cell phone to receive text messages that give them intelligence (aka clues) to accomplish top secret spy missions in the game.

How totally cool is that? I love this idea. The messages are standard rate, so there is no additional cost to play with the SMS feature. (As long as you have a good text messaging plan. Which you do, don’t you?)


You may be wondering what this has to do with mobile marketing. It is an indication of how integrated mobile is becoming in our daily lives. The more aspects of daily life that are intertwined with mobile the more open consumers will be to communicating with businesses via mobile. It will just be completely normal to use your phone to interact with websites, companies, appliances, games, TV, radio and print media. And businesses that don’t have some sort of mobile interaction will feel old fashioned and get left behind in marketing. Just like any business now that doesn’t have a website feels positively ancient and out dated.

SIDE NOTE:
Be sure to also see my YouTube video about Woman’s Day Interactive – an example of a mobile interactive magazine.

I will let you know soon how much fun using text messaging with CLUE is. Don’t tell my daughter but this will be one of her birthday gifts this weekend. I will also let you know if there is a marketing aspect to it as well. I am hoping for a double opt in opportunity to stay on an SMS list for additional value. Fingers crossed. Oh and I also hope I complete the most missions before being discovered by Agent Black. My Palm Pre and I are ready.

Disclosure: The links to CLUE on Amazon are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase CLUE from Amazon using these links it will add a small amount to my affiliate commission from Amazon which I use to buy books from Amazon.