2013 IAB Awards | Rich Media and Digital Video Winner
Expendables 2: Deploy & Destroy
Agency: SOAP Creative
Client: Roadshow Films
The Problem
SOAP Creative was tasked to engage a male 15-30 target audience with the blockbuster movie, The Expendables 2: Deploy & Destroy, get them to watch the movie trailer, share information about the film with their peers and ultimately drive them to buy a ticket. The challenge was to cut through the noise of a crowded market, with a movie trailer that didn’t hit the usual mark of muscle and explosions, to create social buzz and encourage ticket sales.
The Solution
As gaming is a key passion of the target audience, this was put at the very centre of the campaign. An Expendables 2 ‘Tower Defense’ game was created with the trailer for the movie placed in the game and the game itself placed on sites where movie tickets could be purchased. This game became the media channel, acting like a viral video that would be viewed, shared and embedded on hundreds of other sites. This was complimented by a Facebook competition and a cinema/TV advert.
The Results
The game had over 10 million visits in the first two months with the average session lasting more than 13 minutes – hugely impressive in the age of 15 second viral video clips. There were 100,000 shares to Twitter and Facebook and 220,000 bought tickets. As the judges noted, “It had perfect pitch and tone, relevant to the target and the film that delivered very real return on investment”.
