Zynga launched its first reward-based mobile advertising campaign Tuesday in an effort by the "Words With Friends" company to earn more money and ease concerned investors.
The "It Starts With You" campaign, promoting the 2013 Honda Accord, allows players of "Words With Friends" and "Scramble with Friends" to earn in-game currency and tips by playing words related to the Japanese car brand.
Honda's independent research claims its target audience has a "strong affinity" for word games and puzzles, and using vocabulary words as mundane as "tech" and "new" help fill gamers' coffers.
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"As a leading social entertainment company, Zynga is focused on delivering value to brands through the most engaging and innovative ad products that both surprise and delight our huge player base," Julie Shumaker, Zynga's vice president of global brand sales, said in a statement. "Reward-based advertising is a concept we leverage with tremendous success in our web games, so we are thrilled to offer our first-ever mobile reward advertising program to promote the all-new 2013 Honda Accord."
Zynga, which has lost top employees as its stock price has fallen, is scrambling to monetize.
Earlier this month, the company said it paid millions more than it should have to acquire OMGPOP, the maker of "Draw Something."
As of 11:45 a.m. ET Tuesday, Zynga shares were down .41 percent to $2.41.