An expanding digital marketing agency has been challenged to create an addictive viral game for this year’s Internet World trade show at Earl’s Court for the second year running.

Tamba, which has just moved from its base in Birmingham to larger offices in Staffordshire, will be delivering a viral campaign to attract new delegates to the 2009 show – the longest running business event for professionals involved in the industry.

This year’s game is called Off Your Trolley and is a fast-paced game of skill and reflexes.

Colourful icons fall down from the top of the screen, each one representing a different facet of the Internet World exhibition. Each level focuses on one of these icons and players have to catch as many of the featured icon as they can whilst avoiding the rest.

Last year Tamba produced Internet World Walkabout, a viral game which involved moving delegates around exhibitors’ stands and directing them to various areas of the arena. It attracted 7.2 million plays and helped achieve a 25 per cent increase in registrations in the first week.

Tamba’s reappointment by Internet World comes after the nine-strong company moved to new 10,000 sq ft offices at Burntwood Business Park, in Staffordshire, a move prompted by its plans for growth this year.

Tamba chief executive Kay Hammond said: “At the moment we are rattling around in our new offices but we intend to grow into the space.

“We are recruiting throughout this year because we have won so many contracts.”

Ms Hammond said the company had been able to take advantage of the growth in viral marketing because of its strong focus on how games could contribute to the bottom lines of Tamba’s clients.

“When viral first started about three years ago people didn’t understand what it was about and how they could get a return on their investment,” she said.

“We really focused on having calls to action in our game and on how clients could monetise it.”

Tamba, which also has an office in London, recently expanded its Midland team with two newly-created roles and a senior promotion as a result of new client wins.

Former lead web developer Andy Simpson was promoted to technical director and is now responsible for managing the interactive marketing solutions team.

Duncan Cooper joined as technical services engineer, following three years working as a network implementer at JCB Excavators.

Meanwhile, Akvile Seseikaite joined Tamba as a 2D/3D artist illustrator.

She previously spent two years freelancing as an illustrator and digital illustrator at APT Marketing and Rancon.

The company also had cause to celebrate earlier this month when one of its games, called Barcode Bedlam, claimed the number one spot in the Viral Chart three years after its original launch.

The game was produced for barcode scanner company DataScan and is a form of “shoot-em-up” set in a variety of retail, industrial and warehouse layouts and was created to drive traffic to the DataScan website. It has now seen almost seven million plays.

See the game at Datascan here.