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"Rango, the Johnny Depp-voiced chameleon whose self-titled movie is set to hit theaters this weekend, will have a cameo in Zynga's FrontierVille to help promote the release.\nStarting today, FrontierVille players will be challenged to find Rango, ask their friends for 10 water buckets and view the trailer for the film. If they complete that mission, players get a Rango statue to add to their homestead on FrontierVille.\nZynga has used its games to publicize movie openings before. Most recently, the company's Mafia Wars plugged Sony Pictures's The Green Hornet by offering collectibles within the game. Zynga also promoted DreamWorks Animation's Megamind on FarmVille with Mega-Farm, a themed landmark within the game.\nManny Anekal, Zynga's global director of brand advertising, says that while there are no figures linking activity on those games to increased box office receipts, some 19 million people are active FrontierVille users and 9 million interacted with the Megamind promo. \nThis is the latest promo to offer a prize for watching a trailer on Facebook. Last week, NBC offered a buy-one-get-one-free deal from Chiptotle for watching a preview for America's Next Great Restaurant, a new reality show. \nWhile such promos are effective at getting users to click play, it's unclear if they're actually watching the video or if they're more apt to watch the advertised property. Chris Thilk, who runs the blog Movie Marketing Madness, says that while it's hard to tell if the promos actually increase attendance, gameplayers at least don't seem to mind. \"The promotions add functionality to game play,\" he says. \"As long as it's not just an ad, I think the audience will be more forgiving.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/02/28/zyngas-rango-opening/>