AWARD CRITERIA: Effective commuication of brandʼs message, Creativity, Influence on sales performance, Influence on audience, Impact vs budget
BEST USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
PLAYSTATION ACCESS
(SCE UK) PlayStation Access is SCE UKʼs new community drive that keeps consumers updated about upcoming PS3 and Vita games. The initiative centres around its Facebook page, which already has an audience of nearly 100,000. Loyal PlayStation fans are rewarded with invites to sampling events, competitions with exclusive prizes and trial versions of the biggest games. Activity ties in with Sonyʼs wider campaigns: to complement its Rizzle Kicks Vita ad, Access members were given the chance to win tickets to a gig by the UK music act. Other Access outlets include a weekly show broadcast on PSN, YouTube and iTunes and the Access magazine.
PWNED (EA) Electronic Artsʼ bi-weekly broadcast has been running for more than a year now and continues to grow its audience. The show has a modest 1,000 subscriptions on YouTube, but episodes such as the Battlefield 3 Special can garner audiences of more than 1.7m. The series gives gamers a behind-the- scenes look at EA and its biggest titles, and often provides extensive coverage around trade shows such as Gamescom and E3.
SKYLANDERS MUMSNET CAMPAIGN (ACTIVISION)
When launching the innovative Skylanders: Spyroʼs Adventure, Activisionʼs UK PR team targeted parents directly through the most relevant social media channels – specifically Mumsnet, which has more than 2m users in the UK. Activision invited mums and their children to special Skylanders events, including a Magical Morning at Hamleys, and created a special microsite for the game on Mumsnet. All in all, Mumsnet promotions generated 390,000 views. Other activity was focused around school holidays, such as the ʻhalf term in a boxʼ sample packages sent to the UKʼs top ten most influential parenting blogs.
SKYRIM VIRAL VIDEO (BETHESDA/HARRY
PARTRIDGE) Ahead of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda sought out YouTube users that had established large communities. They found Harry Partridge, an online cartoonist with more than 300,000 users, and commissioned him to create special viral videos based on the upcoming RPG. Partridge delivered three high quality animations that quickly racked up millions of views. The first, which took a friendly poke at RPG fanboys, led the charge with nearly 5m views between February and October 2011, followed by another 5m between November and January. As launch
approached, ʻSong of Skyrimʼ and ʻ80s cartoon parody ʻDovahkidsʼ generated 5m and 1.8m views respectively.