Pepsi announced a coup last week with plans to use Lucasfilm's "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace 3D" to promote its Brisk iced tea and juice drinks.

According to the New York Times, Pepsi is releasing a new mobile game app featuring Yoda and Darth Maul, aimed at Brisk’s target market—that is males, ages 18 to 29.

Most Popular Mobile App

Games are one of the most popular mobile apps, according to Nielsen, which found it to be the top app downloaded in a 30-day period in Q2, 2011. Sixty-four percent of mobile app users have downloaded a game app, slightly ahead of number two category weather (60%) and more than 10% ahead of number three category social networking (56%).

More than nine in 10 app downloaders (93%) are willing to pay for downloading mobile apps. This is about 7% more than are willing to pay for entertainment app downloads (87%), and 22% more than the 76% will to pay to download news apps.

NFC-Enabled

Microsoft is suggesting a tweak to this model in a new blog post: NFC, or near-field communication gaming. NFC tags can be used to create an interactive board game in a restaurant setting, it says. It gives the example of a family of four dining out.

As part of a brand partnership the waitress gives the family NFC-enabled game pieces to be used with a game board printed on their placemat. The pieces, which look like the characters from a popular children’s move about to be released in theaters, react to the phone and trigger interactive elements like trivia, puzzles, animations and videos.

The family is occasionally prompted by information written on spaces of the game board. When one of the kids successfully solves an onscreen puzzle challenge triggred by the game piece, the family receives four free tickets to the movie.