Almost 30,000 Australians have downloaded Kyle and Jackie O’s  car chase phone application since its launch in the middle of last month. The Series II Holden Cruze Car Chase’s virtual car travelled through nearly half of Sydney’s suburbs in the past two weeks before Kyle and Jackie called ‘Stop’ at the end of the ratings period and the person in control of the car won.

Mobility has always been one of radio’s key strengths, and Austereo’s integration of mobile phone mobility with radio is an important step for the industry in its desire to stay current and to have a presence on the multitude of mobile devices now available to consumers. Getting onto the gaming bandwagon is also an important goal for radio, and 2Day is taking the lead with this initiative.

radioinfo downloaded the app to see how it works. Once logged in, the phone’s GPS locates you and shows you on a map where the car is. You must chase the person who has it and carjack them to gain control of the car and win prizes. Clues are heard on Kyle and Jackie’s breakfast show and 2Day keeps track of the game during the day.

It is a great opportunity for advertiser, Holden, to integrate a traditional radio advertising campaign with an innovative promotional execution. The benefit for 2Day is that the branded app is loaded on to fan’s phones, hopefully increasing time spent listening and their engagement with the station.

While the app allows players to link out to the 2Day website, the one missed opportunity for the station is that it did not offer an audio streaming option inside the app. Of course using GPS does drain phone power quickly (there is a warning in the game notes), and audio streaming does cost money (depending on your data plan), but to consumers savvy enough to download the game neither of these two things should not be a problem.

The highly advanced multi-media application’s virtual car travelled 25, 083 kilometres via players’ phones. The GPS-tracked path touched over 300 localities from 2Day FM’s World Square headquarters to the likes of Palm Beach, Manly, St Ives, Terrey Hills, Blacktown and Campbelltown.

The ultimate interactive campaign inspired a 2Day FM listener to hire a dinghy plus single seat aircraft to row across Botany Bay and fly up the North Coast boundary. Players also took to the walking tracks of Kurangi National Park to pursue the car through bushland for a day.

As the game drew to an end in the last week of ratings, Kyle and Jackie called ‘stop’ in the middle of a song on Monday 29 August when Rachel Millmore from Ingleburn was in possession of the virtual car in the suburb of Bankstown. She instantly scored the prize of the brand new Series II Holden Cruze SRi-V, along with the $10,000 cash which was in the boot.

Southern Cross Austereo National Sales Director, Cathy Thomas says the hugely successful promotion, launched by Southern Cross Austereo and Holden “saw the virtual world meet reality, giving users the exciting chance to chase virtual car throughout the streets of Sydney.

“A massive amount of resources were engaged to deliver a unique campaign for 2Day FM listeners and Holden, overall it was a prime example of how radio can deliver to audiences and clients alike with outstanding results.”

This game, along with the earlier ‘Fugitive’ mobile execution, puts Austereo in a dominant position on hand held devices in the evolving converged radio industry.

Here how the winner reacted on air when Kyle and Jackie announced the comp was over.