Air NZ's simple NPC internet game takes off with vengeance

Friday 24th August 2001



AIR POINT: The NPC game is intended as a way of getting a better bang for Air NZ's sponsorship buck

By Nick Smith

New Zealanders' passion for rugby is propelling an internet rugby game - and promoting Air New Zealand in the process - to the top of the charts.

After only two weeks, more than 18,000 Kiwis are playing Virtual NPC, the rugby game designed and created by Aim Proximity for its client Air New Zealand.

The results make the game the most popular sporting website in the country, a coup for Aim Proximity which was merely trying to maximise Air NZ's sponsorship of the domestic tournament.

"It's a real big step forward for us," said Aim account director and Waikato supporter Clint Bratton. "It's a good example of the innovation that Aim has come up with."

Perhaps the promotion's phenomenal success is to do with its simplicity.

All participants have to do is select each week's NPC winners with a points margin. Picking the winning team earns a player five air points, with an additional 10 points for picking the correct margin.

At the end of the competition, the leading points winner and 14 friends - known collectively as the First XV - are flown to the NPC final of the winner's choice.

Current front-runner is a rugby fan by the name of Matt Hunt with 120 points on the website Hall of Fame. But players can have their own personal list to compare their own performance against their mates'.

There are even celebrity participants. No surprises then that Radio Sport host Martin Devlin and veteran rugby writer Phil Gifford are frontrunners with 55 points, while morning television presenter Mary Lambie has scored a humble zero.

Only 2500 air points can be won playing Virtual NPC, not enough to get anywhere exciting, but that has not deterred participants.

Mr Bratton said the game was intended as a way of getting better bang for the Air New Zealand buck in sponsoring the domestic rugby competition.

"People talk about the Air New Zealand NPC - which is good brand exposure - but we wanted to make the sponsorship bigger than the competition," he said.

He initially had set what was considered the difficult target of 15,000 people playing the game by the end of the competition.

The results exceeded everyone's expectations. Using permission-based email and a physical mail drop, air points members were invited to play the game, which required the creation of new software to make it work.

Viral marketing, where participants pass on the registration via email to friends, helped spread the word. Testimony to the success of this technique is that more than 4000 of the 18,000-plus playing the game are not air points members.

The game has a pass-on rate of 30%, meaning for every air points member registered, 1.3 people are playing the game.

Virtual NPC has a number of unusual features, including a sophisticated "opt-out" system amusingly called Athletes Foot to ensure that people are not victims of spam.

"For a website only two weeks old to be rating that high ... it demonstrates the power of email marketing," Mr Bratton said.

"The Virtual NPC is the first New Zealand example of this type of online relationship and its success has been absolutely phenomenal. With relatively little promotion by email and direct mail, 18,000 registrations have been generated in two weeks and with numbers growing by the minute the sky's the limit."

The competition will also provide Air New Zealand with new information about its air points members - what rugby team each member supports - allowing it to tailor packages that might interest a Waikato or Otago supporter.

Ansett Australia is now interested in picking up the Aim innovation to run with its sponsorship of the Aussie Rules competition.

Rugby fans interested in joining the game can register at www.virtualnpc.co.nz

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