Open Road Films reached more than one million consumers through contests on gaming application Covet Fashion while driving sales of movie tickets and merchandise for the Dope movie release.

Fashion fans were encouraged to dress characters from the film Dope during three different challenges on the mobile app. The film increased awareness to drive ticket sales in a demographic that may be interested in the film, but unaware, as both the film and app skews to a younger crowd.

“While there was no accurate way to track ticket sales that resulted from the Covet Fashion Dope campaign, we do know the promotion benefitted exposure to the film in a number of ways including generating more than 21 million mobile in-app impressions and 550 thousand potential social media impressions,” said Blair Ethington, senior vice president of brands and marketing at CrowdStar, San Francisco. “Covet Fashion also helped contribute to the over 150 thousand new video trailer views that the movie received from combined efforts with Open Road Films over the campaign period.”

CrowdStar is the gaming developer behind the Covet Fashion app.

Gaming with fans
Covet Fashion is an app on mobile devices, in which users can create outfits from big name brands and win points and products based on the amount of votes an outfit receives within a specific challenge.

The mobile app and film partnership offered three events for players to enter in and win points for the game. For each challenge users dressed one of the main characters from the film in apparel that coincides with the film.

Once the outfit was completed, other users voted on the outfit.. The user with the most votes won the challenge.

Dope follows the lives of three teenagers who consider themselves geeks, during their senior year of high school, while avoiding drug dealers and bullies. The trio are aficionados of the 90s era of culture and apparel.

To coincide with the 90s theme, the Covet Fashion challenges had users create outfits based off the decade and the film’s trailer.

The fashion gaming app created a contest for fans to win a chance to attend the premiere of Dope through the challenges. To enter, users had to complete all three challenges on Covet Fashion and share their end product on Instagram.

Contestants had to tag both the film and the gaming app to be eligible to win, along with hashtags #CovetDopeMovie, #contestentry and the Covet Fashion username in the caption. This increases the apps reach as well as the films’ reach.

The winner of the contest won tickets to the premiere of the film in New York on June 11. Covet Fashion also gave the winner 2,500 diamonds, the point system in the game, as well as 1,500 diamonds to ten runner ups.

Sharing the app and the film on Instagram with followers and friends makes consumers more open to marketing and engagement.

Engaging in sales
Similar to this app, San Francisco retailers such as Ravits Watches and Jewelry and SoMa StrEat Food Park took social media from engagement to monetization with new mobile application wRipple, that offers deals through social sharing (see more).

Also, Brands such as Skullcandy, EMMA cosmetics, Traeger Grill, True Gentleman and Swoob partnered with retail application gameit, where users answer trivia questions based on advertising content to win prizes, leaving a lasting marketing impression while driving sales (see more).

“Covet Fashion and Open Road Films worked together to engage Covet Fashion’s 3 million monthly users to experiment with Dope movie inspired style and build anticipation for the premiere,” Ms. Ethington said.

Final take
Brielle Jaekel is editorial assistant at Mobile Commerce Daily