Orange launces pan-European game “Together Quest” for cultural season

Rating: Game for teams of four will lead to Paris treasure hunt

As part of it’s Presidency of the EU, France has created the Cultural Season, in which member states are meant to show off their cultural heritage. As part of this season, Orange has created a game called “Together Quest“. The game will see teams of four 15 - 25 year olds exploring the cultural history of the 27 EU capitals.

How does this work?

Each team nominates a leader and three helpers, and registers on the website at Orange. The game itself consists of 162 different challenges, which will be issued to the teams on-line, and require off-line activities to complete. The, ahem, “wacky” nature of some of the challenges is supposed to appeal to the younger users, and the four highest scoring teams will be sent to a final in Paris. The final will consist of a day-long treasure hunt throughout the city, and the final winners will be awarded with entry to cultural and sporting events all over Europe for the next year. The cultural events are the Cannes Film Festival, an evening at the “Orange cinema” Festival in Switzerland, the Glastonbury rock festival in the UK (or the “Orange Warsaw Festival” in Poland). The sports events are the French Tennis Open, a rugby match featuring “Les Bleus” or the Copa del rey (basketball) in Spain.

From the Press Release:

“By adopting a humorous and sometimes wacky tone, we sought to gain the interest of young people throughout Europe, showing that it is possible to discover the cultural heritage of our 26 neighbours and have fun at the same time”, says Séverine Legrix de la Salle, Orange Group brand Director. “Together Quest thus reminds us of the importance of social bonds and community action, which are part and parcel of young peoples’ lifestyle and which hold high the genetic code of our new brand vision, “together, we can do more”.

What we think?

This is a really nice idea, but it doesn’t seem to live up to it’s own goals. Given that it’s meant to be a Pan-European event, hosting it entirely in France seems kind of counter-productive. How much cooler could this have been if it pulled in contestants from all over Europe? Proper multi-national youth participation could have lead to a wonderful game, hosted over the internet and mobile web.

On top of that, the language of the Press Release made me wince. Honestly, putting the word “wacky” in there is far more likely to drive off the young audience they’re so eager to attract.

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