BP Ultimate Rally Challenge

The aim was to maximise the awareness of the BP Ultimate brand sponsorship of the VW Touareg teams competing in the 2006 Paris to Dakar Rally through a ‘best in breed’ online driving game, which needed to work seamlessly as part of broader sponsorship activity undertaken by 141 Worldwide.

The target market was drivers who want to get the most out of their car and who feel guilty about the environment, and ‘Petrolheads’ - Rally enthusiasts and online gamers Europe wide.

The game originally went live in German, with versions for Spain, Austria, Poland and Portugal following.

The game itself needed to convey a range of key brand features such as more performance and less pollution, more responsiveness, miles per gallon, a cleaner engine, fewer emissions, and more power.

The ultimate objective was to drive trial of BP Ultimate Diesel.

The game is level based, requiring users to successfully negotiate three different terrains — the countryside of Southern Europe and the desert and mountains of North Africa — each with their own hazards. With only three stages, each one is deliberately large.

The user is in control of the VW Touareg, using cursor keys to drive overland and watching out for buggies, jeeps and motorbikes. As you progress, your fuel guage will go down, but can be replenished by picking up fuel cans. Normal fuel runs out quicker than BP Ultimate, which also cleans your engine. The race is over if you run out of fuel, or incur too much damage.

The tone of the game reflected the straight talking, charismatic, and feisty BP Ultimate brand characteristics.

Skive modelled the VW Touareg in full 3D along with a number of other vehicles, objects and scenery such as burnt out cars, bridges, trees, ruined buildings and boulders.

The game was promoted via Miniclip and achieved over 11.5 million plays from 5.6 million unique users.

As a consequence of this success, Skive was recommissioned to build the BP Ultimate Championship Rally to promote the fact that the BP sponsored Ford Focus won the WRC. It has already had over 14 million plays, with Castrol-branded versions rolled out subsequently.

The BP Ultimate Rally Challenge is available to view upon request.