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Brief
Lead communications agency Initials’ original brief was to develop an innovative promotional mechanic which would drive consumer engagement and sales. After devising the concept of a promotional film, they drafted in AMV/BBDO for digital consultancy who in turn hired us, rehabstudio, as interactive partners and UpsetTV as the film production studio.
Digital Brief
The brief to us as digital creative production partners was to turn the film footage shot by UpsetTV into a Flash-based multi-level, personalized gaming experience. rehabstudio’s Creative Director, Tim Rodgers says: “We had a challenging brief to extend the plot and interactivity beyond the video. The 3D tools we’ve been creating for the game give the user full control to explore and move the story on. Plus we’ve created a number of secret levels and experiences for hardcore gamers. iD3 is the perfect showcase for our creative and technology skills.”
Strategy
The Doritos iD3 campaign was designed to further bolster the brand’s reputation for bold, innovative consumer involvement. Nic Davies of AMV BBDO led digital planning for the campaign:
“Doritos is a brand which repeatedly turns to social media to engage its consumers in a way that generates word of mouth, and iD3 is no different. The strategic premise is incredibly simple. Launch a mystery flavour and invite consumers to guess what it is, with the lure of big rewards, linking on-pack promotion, microsite and social network viral campaign. The mystery flavour has inspired much debate, both online and in the real world and the supporting three-part advergame has been built around this central idea.”
Engaging key influencers was another key objective from the start and outreach support has also been shrouded in mystery, with grassroots seeding and an exclusive blogger outreach programme offering special VIP codes to influential bloggers, film buffs, hardcore gamers and select media empowering them to participate in the advergame and to give away these special codes to their readers.
In essence, what the campaign set out to do was to create a standout piece of brand entertainment – delivered online and embedded within the social media space, engaging people with the new flavour in a credible way that would resonate among Doritos’ savvy 18-24 audience.
Execution
iD3’s three-part episodic online adventure started on 21st July 2009.
The game’s narrative expands upon the Doritos’ mystery flavour intrigue. Set in London’s shady underworld, an identity theft ring has stolen your identity and you have been coerced by the police to go undercover, to track them down and expose the criminal mastermind behind the gang.
The footage is shot in point of view, putting the game player in the driving seat, allowing them to decide their own fate and dictate the plot by choosing their own series of adventures and outcomes. Each adrenalin-filled episode blends slick live action footage with 3D interaction, giving the whole experience a distinct high-production cinematic feel.
rehabstudio have added 30 mini games into the film experience and the advergame is uniquely integrated with Facebook Connect, which enables a more personalized, immersive experience, making the game more social and pushing the boundaries of technology.
The idea for using Facebook Connect was to enhance the ‘socialness’ of iD3, offering a way for users to register via Facebook and share iD3 content with their Facebook friends, all without leaving the Doritos website. It’s also been used to insert content from players’ Facebook profiles into the film – so having their profile picture appearing on an identity card, or a friends’ image appear on a wanted poster.
In a further bid to extend the project virally, rehabstudio also created some ‘Konami Codes’ – cheat codes – seeding them across blogs to help users frustrated by particular challenges within the game.
Making the plot interactive meant creating a large number of different choose your own outcomes and during the planning stages this took the form of 3, 4m printouts of the logic of the site. These decision trees show a complex set of variables and choices.
Each special iD3 unique pack code gives players 6 lives and big spot prizes are also being won along the way courtesy of promotional partner O2. The 4.6 million codes issued also have to be recognised by the game, adding a further layer of complexity to the back end system. Tim Rodgers from rehabstudio:
“One of the biggest technical challenges bolting a project this size together was computing power. The project really pushes technology to the limit; the Flash engine used for the video mapping and 3D requires cutting edge hardware to run it. Loading times for such a high density of multi-outcome video footage was also a challenge, so the whole project is a technical achievement.”
Those who successfully complete all three episodes have the chance to win a cash prize of up to £50,000.
Timings:
The project will have been completed in a six month time frame, broken down as:
- 1 month’s strategic planning and development
- 2 months pre-production
- 3 months production of the live campaign
Results
The campaign is still ongoing, but iD3 has not only engaged Doritos’ consumers the world over, but is achieving impressive results.
Pete Charles, Doritos Marketing Manager says: “iD3 is one of the most exciting programmes we’ve developed on Doritos. The combination of a great new product and cutting edge marketing developed by innovative agency partners has allowed us to create a hugely involving campaign.”
Due to the recent launch on 21.07.09, full results won’t be published until November, but the campaign has got off to a flying start with key highlights as follows;
- Over 104,000 visitors to doritos.co.uk (already ahead of target)
- 25% visitors logging on via Facebook Connect
- An FWA award 11th August
- Boards Magazine Pick of the Month (August)
- Hundreds of tweets and Twitter hotspot 27th July
- Over 100 blog posts (ref: Google Blog Search)
- Almost 50,000 Facebook fans
- Average dwell time reaching almost 8 minutes (ref: Google Analytics)
and over 50,000 views of the trailer from 95 countries (ref: Go Viral)
- Sales figures are looking very healthy too with Doritos at +23% (Source: Nielsen)
Credits
Promotional campaign lead Initials, London
Interactive Creative Direction & production rehabstudio
Script writing and video production Upset.tv
Digital Planning AMV BBDO
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