Games savvy people play

• Reprints

Mike Rhodes (from left) and Andy McKenna of Central Street Games and client Gary Schafer of Minelab America pose for a photograph with a Minelab metal detector and an iPhone game/application called Epic Finder-Minelab at a park near the Central Street Games offices, 1016 W. Jackson, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011, in Chicago. Central Street Games produces games incorporating various companies' products and services. | John J. Kim~

Article Extras

Updated: November 23, 2011 8:04AM

Two companies on opposite ends of the business spectrum — one a technology startup and the other a Hyde Park tennis club — are using social-media promotions to advance their goals.

The XS Tennis Center in Hyde Park won $50,000 to provide free after-school tennis programs at needy Chicago public elementary schools.

And a West Loop technology startup is developing customized online games to help companies attract new customers.

XS Tennis Center, the African-American-owned training site for some of the nation’s top “tween”-age tennis players, won a Pepsi Refresh online grant contest by leveraging everything from NBA celebrity tweets to bottle-cap collections.

The tennis center was one of 10 winners among 250 competitors based on the number of votes it garnered in the web-based competition.

The tech startup, Central Street Games, financed and headed by Andy McKenna, former Illinois GOP Party chairman and former gubernatorial and U.S. senatorial candidate, aims to win a share of the $23 billion sales-promotion market by creating online games that entice players to buy a company’s products.

The company’s first major venture is a mobile-phone game for Minelab Americas, which makes and sells metal detectors used to find land mines in war zones and enable hobbyists to ferret out gold and precious metals.

The game, “Minelab: Epic Find,” launched Sept. 26 and can be downloaded for free on the Apple marketplace. The game takes players through the experience of a hunt while they “learn” how to virtually wave the detector, listen to its cues, read indicators and dig and find the treasure.

Both examples show the growing influence of smartphones and mobile communication. Industry studies forecast that smartphones will be the majority of mobile phones in the United States by year’s end.

Smartphone users spend nearly an hour each day, on average, interacting with mobile apps and websites, and four of the top 10 downloaded apps are games, according to Nielsen.

The Pepsi Challenge rewards people or groups for submitting community-renewal ideas online.

XS Tennis Center President Kamau Murray produced and blasted the center’s YouTube promotional video, sent out email and text blast messages, asked friends to vote on the center’s Facebook page, and enlisted sports-celebrity friends Quentin Richardson and Dwyane Wade to tweet their combined 3 million Twitter followers for votes. NBA players Dwight Howard, Shawn Marion, Dorell Wright, Jameer Nelson and Gilbert Arenas re-tweeted to seek their followers’ votes.

The tennis center also ran a “Caps for Kids Campaign” asking members and their friends to bring in yellow bottle caps from Pepsi drinks to boost their score. Each cap had a code that counted as a vote.

XS Tennis will start the after-school tennis clinics Nov. 1 at 15 to 20 Chicago public elementary schools whose students could most benefit.

The goal is to teach kids ages 5-8 to play tennis, and to create teams of children in kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades to compete against other schools.

“We want to grow the sport of tennis, and do something for the city as the schools undergo budget cuts,” Murray said. “It also gives us the chance to identify hidden talents who can be junior tennis champions.”

XS Tennis aims to re-create the success of Zoe Spence, 13, who started playing at the club at age 6, and rocketed to national rankings by age 12. She’s ranked No. 2 in doubles and No. 12 in singles in the United States Tennis Association’s 12-and-under division.

The metal-detector game is aimed at attracting young people, too. Minelab Americas General Manager Gary Schafer, based in the Australian company’s North and South American headquarters in Downers Grove, said the mobile game is designed to appeal to a new audience of young people up to age 25 who are interested in activities such as camping, hiking and adventure games.

“I’d love for it to go viral,” he said.