Netflix wanted to make the launch of the first Zach Snyder film on their network a cultural moment in France, with a strong focus on gamers, a key target audience for this movie category. Up ‘til now, Netflix had struggled to engage with this highly elusive audience in France. Our aim was to make a bold statement that would spark conversations and make people think of the campaign as a blockbuster.

Zombies are coming, and nowhere will be spared.

We decided to hijack the transmission of the main eSport event of the season: the League of Legends MSI, which brings together the winners of 12 regional leagues in a highly anticipated encounter.

In partnership with the French eSport institution OgamingLol, we took over the viewer experience, pranking the audience with a fake studio set-up.

And just not at any time during the broadcast - at end of the last game, during a highly competitive match.

League of Legends watched by millions around the world. It is at the leading international eSport, filling stadiums and broadcast in over 30 languages. It is one of the most popular sports events in the world after the Premier League! The French league is the third most watched national league after Korea and Brazil. And French supporters are known for being among the most dynamic.

We could have gone for a classic sponsorship, renaming an eSport team or simply buying a spot during the match … or we could go all-in.

Because gamers are highly skeptical of advertising, classic assets wouldn’t work. We decided to create something that would get them excited, by doing something that gamers love: blurring the line between fiction and reality.

And what a better time to do that than the MSI: one of the most viewed events on League Of Legends.

A competition that attracts the best eSport clubs in the world and that gathers the winners of 12 regional leagues. It is the clash of the eSport titans.

So on May 22nd 2021, at the conclusion of the League of Legends’ MSI semi-finals encounter between Mad Lions (best EU team) and DWG KIA (best South-Korean team), we edited a fake return to the studio scene into the end of the live broadcast.

Everything started as normal in the studio, influential members of the French LOL scene were gathered on set to analyze the game… until something went wrong … Zombies appeared, disrupting the cast and chasing everyone off set. And then the reveal happened - it was all an Army Of The Dead stunt launching the movie trailer.

It become a streaming moment in France.

Striking the peak viewers of the moment, with more than 1 millions views and more than 1000 interaction in 55s. Fans went totally nuts.

Everyone on Twitch wanted to tune in - generating conversations on Twitter with more than 2,4millions reach of organic tweets.

Creating a FOMO feeling for the audience that goes in mass to the VOD - the Youtube and Twitch VOD gathered more 450 000 viewers - 2,5 time more of any other encounter of this competition.