Roll of Honour // XBOX Halo 4
Halo 4 was the most anticipated Xbox 360 game launch of 2012. And there’s nothing a gamer likes more than seeing their name up in lights. So that’s what we set out to do - hero the gamers who had just bought the HALO 4 game and become new recruits.
As part of a fully integrated campaign we created the Halo 4 ‘Roll of Honour’ and went live across the UK, Germany, France and Spain as the game was hitting stores.
With the help of Facebook, Channel 4 and Framestore NYC we created an online Facebook app that not only showcased the gamers’ names and faces in the ‘Roll of Honour’ but allowed us to connect the information straight into our TV spot just before the ad went live.
It was the first ever TV ad campaign to pull in live information from Facebook alongside online gamer statistics - correct up to five minutes before going live on air.
Every time the ad aired, we uploaded the names and faces of 15 of the latest new recruits and called three of them out personally, by name.
Created in CGI by Framestore NYC emulating the in-game graphics and integrating gamer profiles from the Facebook app we created, plus live game stats from Xbox Live.
How it worked…
We set up a Facebook app at Halo4Enlist.com where gamers could sign up with their Xbox Live gamer details for a chance to feature in our TV ads – with their permission of course.
We automatically featured all of them in the online ‘Roll of Honour’ gallery, which they could share via Facebook and Twitter.
We used online gamer sites and influential gamer bloggers to push out the call to arms further.
Growing the conversation
Each TV spot was unique as it showcased 15 completely different Halo 4 recruits, randomly selected from the ‘Roll of Honour’ website. It also showed an up-to-the-minute report of how many ‘soldiers’ had signed up on Xbox Live.
Each gamer who featured in our ads received information as to when they could see the ads as well as an mpeg copy of the ad for posterity.
Gamers who featured inevitably tweeted and uploaded to YouTube, effectively spreading the word for us.
Halo 4 outdoor activity
In addition to the ‘Roll of Honour’ for gamers joining the in-game fight, we took over UK cities with large format Digital Outdoor posters, using subtle movement to draw people’s attention.