Schick’s razor blade schtick

I found this example of gamification gone wild lurking in the dark corners of our spam filter. Razor blade company Schick is running a promo called Play it Smooth in collaboration with the video game Rock Band 3 (which itself is part of a long-running series that has recently been shuttered). Here’s the basic pitch, such as it is:

Beginning February 2011 and continuing through April 2011, specially marked Schick disposable razor packs will include a special code to download FREE Exclusive Rock Band 3 PROTRACKS at www.schickplayitsmooth.com. This site will give fans a chance to embrace their love of music through song downloads, games and a unique sweepstakes. A stop by the Schick Play it Smooth Facebook page offers even more opportunities to win (www.facebook.com/schickplayitsmooth).

I’ll give them one thing, that’s about as picture-perfect a promo paragraph as we’ve seen in today’s PowerPoint age, although it’s pretty light on why this would be, you know, actually fun to play.

Digging a little deeper, the highlight seems to be a Setlist Contest that will run April 6 through April 13, and actually require entrants to play a set batch of Rock Band 3 songs and achieve a certain score in the game’s online leaderboards. That’s at least a solid tie-in with the source material, and actually uses real video game mechanics (although I’m still not sure what it has to do with the smooth shave I get from my husband's beloved Quattro Titanium razors [shh... that's our little secret]).