The Swedish launch of Gears of War 3 had to stand out in an intense release schedule of numerous blockbuster-titles without any support from advertising. Also, several years had passed since the release of Gears of War 2, and gamers are both forgetful and volatile. We needed a PR initiative to help spread the word about the launch, reignite the spark in our fans and generate sales.

Locally-created campaigns for games are rare in Sweden. We used this to our advantage, and added some nostalgia to the mix.Our answer was Hans Villius - a retired 88-year-old history-professor and former media-personality with a well-known voice. Most Swedes have a relation to Hans’ iconic voice through educational war-documentaries. We brought the legend out of retirement to do one last war-commentary.We created a short film about Gears of War, and let Villius summarize the saga with his well-known catchphrases, utilising provocative and humorous undertones. The video was shared to gaming media. The unexpected match was a hit among gamers and the video quickly spread like wildfire to Swedish radio, dailies, television and online media. Media rejoiced about the campaign, making Hans Villius and Gears of War 3 the hottest topic just in time for the launch. The campaign had 11.4m media impressions, and, without a single coin spent on media or advertising, the video went viral. But more importantly, Gears Of War 3 became the best-selling video game in Sweden, across all platforms.

• A short film based on video-material from the Gears of War games, with Villius' voice-over addressing the Swedish gamers in a personal and local manner;• The video was spread to Swedish gaming-media through personal contact, 2 weeks prior to release of the game. Media could either upload the video themselves or embed the YouTube-video. Giving them that option was important, since gaming-media want to own their content; • A summary of the initiative was sent along with the video, explaining the background of the campaign. All of Sweden's 15 largest gaming-media published news about the campaign; • The buzz in gaming-media got picked up by Swedish dailies, and spread to radio, television and other media platforms; • Even international gaming-forums and media picked up the video. In response, we created a version of the movie with English subtitles, thanking the international fans for the support.

The 5 biggest gaming media in Sweden published the video in their own media players. Gamereactor, the biggest gaming media in Scandinavia, published 4 articles about the campaign, even interviewing Villius. In total, 21 articles have been registered in Swedish gaming media, generating the buzz we needed.Over 80 tweets and 2,000 shares to Facebook have been registered. National media, which generally do not cover gaming, picked up the news because of the buzz. In total, over 55 articles on the campaign have been published in every major media-outlet in Sweden. Villius was interviewed by the 2 biggest dailies, Aftonbladet and Expressen, and the trailer was played on both radio and Aftonbladet TV.Media have praised the campaign, both because of Villius' role and the unexpected initiative.

We reached over 11.4m media impressions. The week of release, Gears of War 3 was the best selling video game, across all platforms.