NVIDIA was challenged to develop a campaign to create widespread buzz about it newest mobile chip innovation, but one that would also inspire and capture the imagination of its most loyal and passionate fans. As the world leader in visual computing, including gaming, NVIDIA lives at the junction where art and science collide, and as such, its most loyal followers range from scientists, gamers and technologists who love puzzles, mystery, visual beauty, story telling and drama. The campaign had to strike at the core of who these people are. Lastly, it had to be done on a shoestring budget.

NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing, including gaming, and lives at the junction where art and science collide. On Jan. 5, 2014, NVIDIA planned to launch its newest innovation and the company wanted to do something for their obsessive fans who love puzzles, mystery, visual beauty, story telling and drama – striking at the core of who they are. The NVIDIA Tegra K1, a new mobile computing chip, comprised of 192 graphical cores, would bring an unprecedented amount of power to consumer electronics. It was a watershed moment for the industry and NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang challenged his marketing team to develop an imaginative, low-cost campaign to generate widespread buzz about this monumental engineering achievement. NVIDIA, a pioneer in high-performance computer graphics, sought out an idea that would creatively play off the Tegra K1 tagline of “Impossibly Advanced” and at the same time be visually stunning. The creation of a massive (310ft diameter) “alien” crop circle with a stylized Tegra K1 chip design was the obvious choice. With the help of master crop circle makers flown in from the UK, the team quietly constructed the crop circle in a nondescript field in the tiny Northern California town of Chualar (pop. 1,190) and left it there to be “discovered” by the public. To fuel excitement about the crop circle, NVIDIA placed a crudely made amateur discovery video on YouTube, alerted local media anonymously, and allowed the mystery and news to spread organically. Secret codes embedded in the design added to the speculation and fired up conspiracy theorists across the world. Within 48 hours the news leapt from local NBC coverage all the way to CNN, the BBC and Sky News. Through planning, NVIDIA was able to successfully ride three waves of media attention to keep its crop circle story in the news for a full week, reaching Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Good Morning America in the process. The ultimate reveal linking the crop circle back to NVIDIA was done at a press event at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, finally putting an end to the mystery.

Within 48 hours, the crop circle news leapt from local coverage to CNN, the BBC and Sky News. NVIDIA was also able to successfully ride three waves of media attention for a full week, reaching Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Good Morning America. The ultimate reveal linking the crop circle to NVIDIA was conducted at a CES 2014 press event. Additional metrics include:

• 350+ organic news placements; 100K shares of articles

• Viral video topped 300K views

• Social media reached 103 countries

• 13K+ Facebook/Twitter conversations

• $250K investment saw $6M return

• 23:1 Return on investment