Forage – New Photo-Based Scavenger Hunt Game – Brings Fun and Value to Events of All Kinds

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Forage is a mobile scavenger hunt game that has already been used by companies like Webtrends, VSP Global, Responsys, and the Mobile Marketing Association to add both fun and value to their conferences. In addition to traditional in-person events and conferences, Forage is also being used for programs targeting online communities. Modcloth.com, an online clothing, accessories, and decor retailer that emphasizes fun and community, hosted a month-long event using Forage on its site in August.

“Our annual retreat brings together a leadership group that not only represents different businesses but also different regions of the world, so it takes creativity to foster effective team building”

“About a year ago a client came to us with the challenge of improving the often awkward dynamic between attendees and vendors at conferences. Forage was designed to solve that problem, but the platform is so flexible that it actually has allowed for a wide variety of new experiences for people,” said Mickey Slater, Director of Experience, Fight.

Forage is the creation of Fight, a specialized marketing services agency in Portland, Oregon. Fight works with its clients to tailor the game specifically to each event by creating customized challenges that attendees complete for points (and prizes!). These challenges are designed to get attendees interacting with event sponsors, vendors, and other attendees in fun new ways, as well as to enhance attendees’ experience and create value for organizers and exhibitors. For example, a challenge might be used to help attendees experience all parts of an event (“Take a photo of the Social Hour in full swing”), provide feedback on a conference (“Submit a photo of your favorite session”), segment the attendees into useful groups (“Take a photo of a number that represents how long you’ve been in your current job”), and pretty much anything else that conference planners can think of.

“With Forage we had double the response in terms of number of players compared to our last scavenger hunt (which was played via text),” said Megan Walsh, Director of Retention Marketing, Modcloth.com. “Forage’s challenge leaderboard and ‘like’ capability allow players to interact with each other's submissions in a way other platforms don’t. This scavenger hunt seems to be in the sweet spot of focused interaction, beautiful imagery, and product storytelling that resonates with our customer. It has enabled some really interesting submissions that confirm our mission to involve our customer in our brand storytelling.”

Webtrends, a global leader in digital marketing optimization and relevance through real-time, unified analytics and customer intelligence, was an early and repeat user of Forage. “We are always looking to create a memorable and fun experience for our customers at our annual event,” said Claire D’Antoni, Marketing Manager, Events, Webtrends. “Forage has allowed us to provide another dynamic, unique way for our employees, customers and partners to interact.”

“We received immediate interest from other conference planners so we knew we were on to something good,” said Justin Spohn, Fight’s Creative Director, “What surprised us, though, was the many different ways that people wanted to use Forage.”

It turns out that the game platform that Fight built was attractive to more than just corporate conference planners. VSP Global, a complementary group of leading companies providing benefits, services and products in the optical industry, is one example of an organization that has used the game for team-building at a recent executive retreat.

“Our annual retreat brings together a leadership group that not only represents different businesses but also different regions of the world, so it takes creativity to foster effective team building,” said Pat McNeil, corporate communications director, VSP Global. “Our attendees embraced the game and the fun challenges really brought people together.”

“We’re getting requests from vacation resorts to college orientations,” said Fight’s Slater. “It’s great to see that solving a problem for one company resonated with an entire industry. I don’t think we could have planned this better if we tried.”

Part of what makes Forage so consistently successful is that, because it’s cloud-based, it’s very simple for organizers to bring to a conference, and easy for conference goers to participate in. Because there is nothing to install, participants can simply point their desktop, laptop, or mobile device browser at the customer URL and begin playing.

For more information on Forage visit www.letsforage.com.

About Fight

Founded in 2009 by a group of digital-natives with deep digital agency experience, Fight offers clients a range of specialized marketing services including strategy, analytics, user experience, digital design, social media, mobile apps, video and print. www.madebyfight.com