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NewswireToday - /newswire/ -
London, United Kingdom, 04/01/2009 - The UK’s largest recycler of mobile phone handsets, Envirofone, has released an online advergame by branded entertainment specialists, Matmi, to help reduce the number of handsets sent to landfill.
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Envirofone commissioned its first online advergame, Battle Fones, to raise awareness of the landfill issue caused by discarded mobile phone handsets. Many mobile users are unaware that their old handsets can be worth up to £100 each and unwittingly add to the UK’s massive landfill problem. The new advergame medium is aimed at raising awareness in the under 25s who are the UK’s top handset swappers*.
Jon Butler, Creative and Marketing Manager at Envirofone, explains: “Our business has doubled year-on-year since 2005 and we hope this advergame will help us get the message across that we pay cash for old handsets and reuse or recycle them responsibly.
“Matmi was the obvious viral consultancy to work with because of the quality of their online games and their ability to reach a certain demographic – in our case, the under 25s. 75% of the UK population owns a mobile phone but that figure shoots up to 96% for 15-24 year olds*. We need to get them into good habits now and make sure handset recycling becomes the norm.”
Jeff Coghlan, MD at Matmi, is pleased to be involved in another landfill reducing cause. “Working with ASDA in 2008 made us more aware of the UK’s massive recycling problem. We send more waste to landfill than the 18 lowest waste producing countries in Europe combined, even though they have almost twice the population**. If we can take mobile handsets and their toxic batteries out of the mix, that would be a major achievement. Battle Fones is a great way to get the handset swapping generation to cash in on their mobile phones – and recycle at the same time.”
About the game
In the Battle Fones game, players compete to increase the trade-in value of their battling handset to its max. Set in typical British scenes such as pubs, offices, trains and kebab shops, the handsets box each other to win the round. Winners get to customise the handset and increase its trade-in value, but damage inflicted by the opponent reduces the trade-in price.
Players can choose the make and model of their handset at the start of the game and at the end of each round, the game subtly displays the handset’s trade-in value. Battle Fones includes six levels and a high score table for the best handset contestants and serious gamers.
* Source: British Council.
** Source: Local Government Association.
About Envirofone
Envirofone (envirofone.com) is a part of the Eazyfone Group, leaders in the collection, recycling and re-use of mobile phones and their components. Envirofone enables consumers to make money from old mobile phones. Consumers can discover how much their old phone is worth and then trade it in using the online trading platform.
About Matmi
Established in 2001, Matmi (matmi.com) is a UK based branded entertainment specialist whose work is fresh and challenges everyday standards. The company's latest projects include the runaway online game for Lily Allen “Escape the Fear”, a DADI Award winning Christmas viral chart topper, a Golden Awards of Montreux winner and a BIMA nominated viral for Comic Relief responsible that’s been played over 25 million times worldwide.
Matmi has been breaking new ground in branded entertainment since 2001, well before online tracking facilities were available. Its highly advanced seeding database enables companies to reach audiences of millions worldwide.
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