MWII reached record-high performance in 2022. Historically, a successful title retains a part of active players preventing them from converting to the next Mainline title.

On top of that, premium games are a significant financial commitment for Italians. It’s a tradeoff between gaming and other forms of premium entertainment, and acceptance of mainstream next-gen gaming as the go-to form of mature entertainment still lags behind other European countries.

The challenge and the client's request was to spread MWIII awareness with a local tone of voice the week before launch. The activation should have lived mostly on social media and focus on generating earned conversations and a sense of “I never expected this from COD, but it actually makes sense”.

The idea was showing the mothers of the game’s hero and villain preparing them a pacco da su (package from above), a Call of Duty twist on the traditional Italian care package called “pacco da giù” (package from below).

From that we created a digital campaign, portraying the worried mothers of the game’s characters preparing "Pacchi Da Su" to help their children getting ready for the imminent battle. In order to make our films even more surprising for our target, we involved two beloved pop culture staples in the cast: Giorgione, the most meme-worthy chef in Italy - to help preparing the packages - and Di Lorenzo, captain of Napoli F.C. - to offer help against the game’s villain.

The insight was crucial, because it made the target feel seen: a huge international brand tapping into such a local insight surprised and enticed our audience.

The audience insight stems from the need to connect game's iconic elements with a concept that resonates with the Italian gamers. We delved into an Italian territory relevant to our audience, capable of portraying the game in a unique way: the family.

Italy has one of the most engaged COD communities in the world, putting in more hours per user in the game than most other countries. When the brand speaks locally with an Italian look and feel, rooted on a local insight, positive sentiment goes through the roof. Gaming communities can be toxic at times, but thanks to this campaign we noticed a 99.9% positive sentiment across all our local owned channels, partner channels, celebrity channels and earned channels. In addition, there was no need for moderation on our owned channels, as creators and influencers jumped into the conversation organically to highlight the positive intent of this initiative.

The most complex part of the project at the production level was faithfully replicating the look of the video game. Photography and set design worked together so that the reality of the video game was immediately recognizable to the audience. Similarly, the talent had to maintain its equally famous and recognizable features but immerse itself in the tone of voice of Call of Duty.

The objective of the campaign was to generate “organic” media to raise MWIII awareness ahead of launch. As planned, the campaign went viral, however, the scale of it was large enough that it has proven hard to track in full. The content immediately gained traction and popularity. An incredible domino effect amongst influencers and fans of both COD and Giorgione who reshared the content, building immediate hype. Meme pages and creators generated further awareness and reach for the campaign, by creating content originating from our videos. The campaign has had great organic momentum in the media after the first video and the Giorgione teaser were released. The following PR amplification targeted mainstream, food, marcom and gaming outlets, also ensuring a wide circulation on social media pages. The pitch was conceived to highlight the key aspects of the campaign: the local insight and the surprising partnership with Giorgione, which made