Client
Namco Bandai & Microsoft
Agency
Soap Creative
Awards
| Gold | Website |
Marketplace Challenge
There were two separate briefs initially. One dealt with very high brand affinity, the other very low within a category where Google Chrome was pulling all the creative punches. Brief 1: Create an online experience for PAC-MAN which can help build awareness for upcoming releases. Target: Hardcore members of the existing PAC-MAN community, people with nostalgic memories of PAC-MAN and younger fans with knowledge of its pop-culture status. Brief 2: Showcase the power of HTML5 on Microsoft's newly released IE9 browser. Target: Primary objective was to generate buzz among Australia's tech/dev community
Objectives
For PAC-MAN an increase of 50,000 Facebook fans would increase exceptional engagement with new users in an awareness initiative For Microsoft: 'Buzz' among the tech/dev community was the key goal and could be measured by 'getting featured on all the main blogs' that group reads. Upon hearing the World's Biggest PC-MAN idea and realising is broader appeal, a KPI of seeing 100,000 visitors come to the site using an IE9 browser was set, as this would demonstrate that the browser is being picked up and used by the wider public as a result of launch activities (which this site was the main component of).
Strategy
World’s Biggest PAC-MAN. The idea sounded simple, catchy and epic enough to end the brainstorming session. But how would it become interactive, sharable and social? The solution was to let new and existing PAC-MAN fans from across the globe create and play their own maze, adding it to an endlessly growing map of interconnected levels - something only possible with the features IE9 boasts. This worked for both briefs. The iconic PAC-MAN would get a new lease on life, whilst the use of HTML5 to make it all happen in the modern browser would gain attention among IE9’s primary target audience, the tech/dev community, and then the rest of the world.
Implementation
On April 13, 2011 worldsbiggestpacman.com launched off the back of just one press release and a presentation at MIX11, Microsoft's developer conference in Las Vegas. The site offered PAC-MAN fans the chance to create their own maze and ad it to an ever-growing map of interconnected playable levels. Rather than over complicate things with too much tech trickery we made it as simple as possible. Click to 'Play' or 'Create'. We used Facebook plugins for a simple user account set-up (and as some security from "junk" mazes being submitted). The 'Like' button provided a simple way to rate mazes and spread the site organically. A country leaderboard was also updated live, based on player’s geo-location. Intensely patriotic battles ensued, including a 3-way rivalry between Brazil, Spain and Argentina for not first, but second spot. The submitted maze designs impressed us so much we created a tumblr to document all the creativity.
Campaign Delivery Cost
$ 0 - $ 49,000
Results
Response: -1.5 million visitors in first 3 weeks -2.3 million visitors from 194 countries -Average time on site 6 minutes (almost 26 years of combined playing time) Engagement: -13 Million mazes played -55,400 mazes created (that’s a map the actual size of 37 soccer fields) -Almost 1.4 billion Pac-Dots eaten, 17 million ghost eaten and 7 million lives lost -7,000 clicks for Japan Red Cross Relief Conversion on Objectives -245,322 visitors using IE9, collectively spending almost 4 years on the site -Increase in new fans to official PAC-MAN Facebook page peaked at +50,000 in one day. Total new fans atrtributed to the site currently sits at 265,000 -Buzz in the digital community: 20,000 sites linked to World’s Biggest PAC-MAN in the first mont, FWA site of the Day, attention from traditional press (CNN, CNET) and all the key tech sites & lifestyle blogs, Radian6 reported over 16,000 tweets in the first week (some from major celebs), search result dominance KPIs = PWND!
Credits
Creative Director
Soap Creative
Client Executive
Michael Kordahi
Carlson Choi
