Angry Birds Rio revolutionised promotional and revenue driven partnerships between game developers and Hollywood and took marketing campaigns for apps in general to a whole new level. Rovio and Fox Digital Entertainment partnered to create an incredible new twist to the blockbuster Angry Birds franchise, working together to build massive anticipation for the standalone Angry Birds Rio game and, in turn, to generate incredible awareness for the 20th Century Fox Film, RIO. The game launched on 22 March 2011, achieving 10 million downloads in the first 10 days of the app’s launch. To date the app has been downloaded over 130 million times across all platforms (iOS, Android, Mac, PC and Nokia).

In Angry Birds Rio, the original Angry Birds are kidnapped and taken to Rio. They escape and set out to save their captured bird friends (e.g. birds from the Rio film). The game includes new characters, environments, and hidden challenges inspired by the Rio film, bringing a new story and adventure to Angry Birds fans.The key to Angry Birds Rio success was integrating the two properties via a carefully constructed back-story, and then empowering consumers to drive viral conversations about the product, through viral videos, Twitter campaigns and other materials.

On iOS, Angry Birds Rio hit No.1 in Top Grossing and Top Paid in all 76 major markets on iPhone, iPad and Apple’s Mac App Store, within 36 hours of launch. The game went on to achieve a record-breaking 10 million downloads in 10 days, 20 million downloads in just over 20 days, making it the fastest selling Angry Birds game to date. The game has generated incredible feedback from critics and fans alike, along with many positive stories from bloggers (e.g. Mashable and VentureBeat), game reviewers (e.g. 148apps and PocketGamer), and mainstream press (e.g. NY Times and Wall Street Journal).

Angry Birds Rio turned into a cross-marketing platform for the film and was a key element in its success, both theatrically and on DVD/Blu-ray. Opening weekend exit polls revealed that a significant number of movie goers had played or interacted with Angry Birds Rio prior to seeing the film. In the Home Entertainment window, over 2.5 Million DVD and Blu-ray copies were sold in the first six days, in North America alone. A driving sale factor was the heavily promoted 15 exclusive Angry Birds Rio levels, available via an in-pack coupon.