When we caught up with the advergaming company last January, CEO Jeff Doiron told OBJ the firm was focused on cracking the "virtual world" market with products such as All Girl Arcade, a virtual gaming site just for girls. Mr. Doiron says that initiative has been a success thus far.
"We're happy to say that AllGirlArcade.com has continued great growth in its user base, along with receiving a number of honours for its vision and strategy such as in the social computing category at the Adobe MAX awards," he says. "With a micropayment model and new site expansion going live before year's end, AGA is proving that that virtual worlds are a hot place to be for this demographic."
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But that's not all Fuel has been up to – far from it, says Mr. Doiron. The past six months have seen the firm make a significant move into the world of social applications for brands such as Sony and Toyota, specifically for Facebook, he says. "We've also had a great success creating Microsoft's first Twitter campaign, which was featured in a number of industry publications such as Adweek," he says.
Mr. Doiron adds that the economic downturn forced many clients to move toward existing networking platforms, such as Facebook, to implement interactive campaigns. It's a "safer" move, he adds, because of the site's already large traffic volume and the nature of many of its users.
"We've been very fortunate in that the brands we work with always seem to understand that 'staying fresh' often means straying from what's been done in the past." - - Jeff Doiron, CEO
Fuel has also recently partnered with Subaru to implement the brand's "Sexy Subaru" online campaign, which involves an interactive application allowing one to become the "official photographer" of scantily clad sumo wrestlers amongst shiny new Subarus.
Offbeat? Maybe. But that's the whole point, says Mr. Doiron. "Staying true to a big brand's message doesn't mean being stale.
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Year founded: 1999
Local head count: 80
Venture capital to date: Undisclosed
Product: Multi-platform games
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