Puma and BMW use racing adver-games to promote their brands

This is a story that began this morning regarding Puma’s branding of a mobile phone campaign that was used recently to promote a Formula One race in China, but has grown throughout the day include a host of different products.

This new trend for big brand adver-gaming is becoming increasingly prolific, it seems. Puma put out a mobile based racing game, along with online scoreboards, wallpapers and a Puma logo-shaped race track.

BMW followed suit almost immediately with its second foray into iPhone gaming along with Artificial Life, which is bringing the German car manufacturer’s Sauber F1 racing car to Apple’s handset.

Racing alongside is the news of Fishlabs's and Volkwagen's new Polo sponsored game, also in development for the iPhone.

What’s particularly interesting is the apparent quality these games appear to exhibit. Movie and TV licences are generally known for rather poor quality game conversions, but they’re just as much product placement and marketing techniques as a brand sponsored racing game on the mobile or iPhone.

But there’s still the question as to whether or not users will accept paying for an adver-game. These first steps into such brazenly branded titles is perhaps a good indication that at least gameplay quality doesn’t necessarily have to be sacrificed - and ultimately that’s going to be the deciding factor for gamer acceptance.