The problem
In 2014, every Chilean car dealership competed with the same pitch: price, bonus, financing plan. AutoPlaza — the largest chain in the country, with more than 56 brands in a mall format — wanted to break that monotony. Cabeza, the agency handling the account, arrived with a brief unusual for the industry: stop shouting offers and get people to play with AutoPlaza. Make contact with the brand something measured in weeks, not clicks. An activation that sustained real attention, not another banner bouncing around news portals.
What we did
The idea was a twist on the Tamagotchi. You entered the minisite, picked one of the 8 brand-new cars AutoPlaza had up for grabs, and from that moment that car was yours. You named it. You fed it. You washed it. You pampered it every day. Each action earned you points in the ranking; sharing any interaction on Facebook or Twitter added extra points and pulled your friends into the mechanic. The more consistent you were with your motorized pet, the better your chances of taking the real car home at the end of the contest. We built everything in Laravel: a backend to support every adoption, a real-time scoring system, and integration with the social APIs of the era.
The outcome
The Chilean automotive press covered it as the first national contest of its kind. It ran for weeks, sustained conversation on Facebook and Twitter — something unusual for the automotive industry at the time — and ended with all 8 brand-new cars actually delivered to their 8 winners. Cabeza added it to its portfolio as one of the standout digital activations of the AutoPlaza account, and the brand presented it internally as its biggest campaign up to that point.
