Michael, Debra, Nicolas and I landed in St. Louis a day before our latest regional promotion’s campaign called the Jay Wolfe Toyota Race for the Ride to turn St. Louis into a frenzy and give away a brand new Toyota!

Alright before I get into all the fun I bet a bunch of you are asking yourselves, ‘What in God’s name is regional promotions, I thought SCVNGR was a mobile gaming company?’

Part of what we do at SCVNGR is leverage our mobile platform and work with regional retailers like jewelers, auto dealerships or real estate groups to put on a huge city-wide mobile phone games that ultimately generate a huge amount of publicity for the client and drive sales. The city-wide mobile phone game has teams of two running around a city to various locations, completing challenges and earning points. The team that accumulates the most points will win something like a $15,000 diamond engagement ring, a brand new car or even a $10,000 down-payment on a house (yeah it’s awesome!).

So this campaign was all about building a game in St. Louis and ultimately giving away a brand new car. You can hear Michael talk about what we were doing in St. Louis (This was just after we all ate an incredible breakfast at our hotel so Michael was in an exceptionally good mood).

Part of our preparation requires walking through the entire game to make sure the game we originally designed months before is still going to work flawlessly. So that morning Debra and I woke up at 5:45 am and took a two hour run to every clue and challenge location in the city. You are probably thinking we are insane for waking up that early and aside from being absolutely correct we wanted to be sure we’d have enough time to get through all of the day’s tasks and still have time to get to the top of the Gateway Arch by the end of the day.

Once we run through the game we like to set up our kickoff and after party locations. We work on all the logistics from line dynamics (how we want people to line up when registering), to where the ‘money shot’ is going to be (money shot located on the right).

The after party for an auto event is a lot of fun because we bring everyone back to the dealership. Listen to Debra talk about how we went about setting up the after party location at Jay Wolfe.

Once we have the kickoff logistics, game runthrough and after party logistics set all we can do is wait for Race Day.

What better way to get amped up for Race Day than heading to the top of the Arch at sunset, get a bird’s eye view of St. Louis and learn a little bit about our country’s history.

A day is never complete without a decompression session over dinner and a beer. Naturally we headed to the hippest bar in St. Louis (at least we thought it was) and enjoyed ‘Fat Beats’ DJ skillz accompanied by a full set of conga drums and a drum set. Sorry no video, only Debra sharing the love…

Race Day is always a lot of fun but can be stressful at times too. It takes an incredible amount of coordination and effort. Debra deserves a ton of credit as she, as always, takes care of business and makes sure, Nicolas, Michael and I are on our games.

What I love about regional promotions is how every city gets behind these events. In St. Louis we had Rams Cheerleaders, Fred Bird (Cardinal’s Mascot), 105.7 The Point, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and tons of local businesses. Check us out with Fred Bird and Gerry from Jay Wolfe Toyota.

Michael emceed the event and below you can see how he kicks off the event and gets Gerry from Jay Wolfe involved…

When the mobile game ends we send everyone to the after party location which in this case was Jay Wolfe Toyota’s lot. At the after party we’ll get everyone food, drinks, giftbags filled with good stuff like free oil changes, deals on cars and so much more. We’ll also invite out local government officials and city celebrities to join in the fun. In this case we had County Executive Charlie Dooley who was the sharpest man dressed on the lot and I have no idea how he wasn’t dying of heat because my clothing was so soaked I felt like I fell in a pool. Check out Charlie talk about the event with Gerry Hogan from Jay Wolfe…

Once the crowd gets situated and relaxes in their chairs, Michael ‘the show’ Hagan takes over. This guy can emcee an event like no one I’ve ever met. Aside from the fact that we have to write his jokes, the guy knows how to get a crowd excited!

The amazing weekend and promotion comes to an end with the giveaway of a brand new car. The crowd is excited beyond belief as everyone waits in anticipation for the winner’s phone to ring. You can check out how we announce the winner in the clip below. When watching the video let me know if you too think Michael drew inspiration from Bob Barker. I think the only thing he was missing from the set of The Price is Right was a skinny mic!

We have way too much fun at SCVNGR and love the fact that we get to see so many of America’s fantastic cities and work with so many great people. Let us know if you’ve participate in one of our Race for the Ride or Diamon Dashe events as we’d love to hear what you thought!