A multi-media global gaming launch, taking a niche franchise to the mass market.

Challenge:

Resident Evil 6 is the latest instalment of Capcom's flagship franchise. We were tasked with launching the game globally across a 9 month campaign period and doubling sales.

Solution:

In order to meet targets, our creative idea needed to engage hard-core gamers and a more mainstream audience. It needed to generate universal appeal and stay true to the dark heritage of the franchise. We focused the whole idea down to one simple emotion and our idea was to ask people what they would do if they faced such an apocalyptic event, if they had "no hope left.

The 'no hope left' campaign kicked off in January with a mysterious viral video, of a Chinese woman leaving a last goodbye message.

A range of graffiti photos from around the world followed, all posted on the conspiracy blog 'nohopeleft.com' that set out to track the spreading virus and response the public. We also used outdoor sites to create re-life examples of the graffiti.

Later, we created the 'Missing Persons Wall’ at E3; The C-Virus World Map was launched to help people warn friends via social media of the spreading virus. We encouraged people to say their 'Last Goodbye's', and confess their 'Last Wishes'. As the campaign evolved, the ARG, Project ELEOS, gave candidates the chance to compete to have their DNA preserved.

Finally two of "the most frightening and disturbing" films launched, one on TV and one online, to conclude the campaign and bring it to the masses.

The first viral film hit 200,000 views in the first 48 hours featuring on hundreds of blogs and trending globally on Twitter. It helped to drive 7.1 million views of the announcement trailer.

The C-virus World Map had over 100,000 visits with over 11,000 people choosing to warn their friends of the impending apocalypse.

Over 9,900 people chose to leave their own 'Last Goodbyes', sharing them across social media channels. And Project ELEOS had over 13,000 people enter. The TV ad – the culmination of the campaign – aired across the world over the course of September and October.

According to our Client, Mickey Torode “This was one of the most enjoyable campaigns I have worked on and the qualitative and quantitative research data showed it was extremely enjoyed by our target audience.”