The Internet is a place where our teen audience’s interests, memes, and inside jokes collide – and where Madden could increase cultural relevance by leaning into an over-the-top, Internet friendly tone. We decided to make the ultimate piece of content by combining things our audience loves most: movies, football, catch phrases, athletes, and celebrities – all with the goal of breaking the Internet and dropping the proverbial mic through the biggest celebration of Madden NFL ever.

This came to life in the form of a five minute-long Bollywood action film spoof, chock full of pop culture references, NFL football stars, Madden NFL competition, and a T-rex.

It was a ridiculously long and over-the-top ode to Madden you couldn’t un-see or look away from.

First, we had to accept the fact that we were not just competing with other video games, but with pop culture as a whole. This meant outshining Kanye+Kim, dishing out thrills that rival the NBA (our audiences’ favorite sport), AND triggering schoolyard conversations to veer toward Madden and away from popular video game titles, like Minecraft.

We did this by creating a long-form Madden-centric celebration, not bite-sized ads.

Our idea kicked off with an epic five minute-long Bollywood action film, hosted on YouTube and featuring our audience’s favorite comedic celebrities (Christopher ‘McLovin’ Mintz-Plasse and Dave Franco), NFL stars (Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham Jr., Colin Kaepernick and Rex Ryan), and a T-Rex.

In the end, we rose to the #1 spot on #PopularOnYouTube list for two days, effectively breaking the Internet. We set new sales records (#1-selling sports game of 2015), and invited a new generation of players into the Madden madness.

Madden: The Game

• #1-selling sports game of 2015

• #2-selling game of 2015

• Exceeded goal of increasing new user base by 10%

Madden: The Movie

• #1 on the #PopularOnYouTube list for two days (evidence that we broke the Internet for two days)

• Top trending topic on both Twitter and Facebook in the US

• Video views to date: 30MM and counting

• 65% of all YouTube views were organic

• Press: 500+ stories generated

In order to restore relevance of Madden among younger gamers, a feature-laden video game focus would need to take a back seat to the most dominant form of entertainment in our audience’s eyes: the Internet. To break through the Internet’s all-you-can-eat buffet of distractions, we created content that was equally entertaining and impossible to un-see or look away from. This came to life in an over-the-top that was so ridiculous, it completely shattered the mold, combining the best of the Internet and the best of Madden in a ridiculous sport-filled branded entertainment package.

Looking closer at our younger 13-24-year-old target, we learned that they are not only less interested in Madden than older generations, but less interested in football overall. This made it critical that we better understand our target and what they deemed relevant in culture.

Through social listening audits, we noticed that “snackable” content isn’t the only content our audience watched. They often seek Internet-breaking content that offers things they’ve never seen before. These often come in longer formats, like music videos, movie trailers, or YouTube influencer videos. PewDiePie, for example, consistently posts 10+ minute YouTube videos that are watched by 30MM+ people, many of whom are teens and twentysomethings, every week.

This got us thinking, why make ads that go short, when many of our audience’s top content creators go really, really long?

Madden NFL is the most successful sports video game in history. But after 26 years, our core players were getting older (+4 years older than players of other top-selling games). To avoid sales declines, we needed to reinvigorate Madden’s place in pop-culture.

We would have to convince attention-deprived teens & twenty-somethings (age 13-24) a that a two and a half decade-old game was still worth their time, money, and attention.

Common best practices say the ideal way to reach younger gamers was with short “snackable” content. Most marketers have tried to copy the media format of Snapchat, Vine, and Twitter, focusing on duplicating bite-sized content young people create themselves. This type of content is meant for short distractions, and while it’s fun, it does nothing to build a brand.

Instead, we chose to create content that wasn’t just a “snackable” distraction, but designed to capture attention of a savvy, entertainment-obsessed audience.