leading the charge
GameStop Surprize Attack
idea
Created “Surprize Attack,” a program that featured a non-traditional sweepstakes at its core and expanded into an all-encompassing promotion that hit consumers in store, online, via their mobile device, through social media, and on TV.
ignition
"Surprize Attack” was a promotion of intrigue and excitement. The tagline “Be ready to play. Be ready to win.” reinforced this idea. Consumers had to be ready multiple times a day to enter – sometimes not even knowing when they would be playing next.
The promotion featured three main elements:
A microsite that served as the hub of the promotion, teasing all of the prizes that consumers could win, including a Polaris snowmobile, a Ducati motorcycle, a Zodiac watercraft, a briefcase of 100,000 Russian rubles, iPhones, military binoculars, laser range finders, and a tricked out Hummer H2. In total, there were more than 2,600 prizes available.
A mobile game designed to engage the core gamers. Visitors to the website could sign up to become “intelligence agents” of Task Force 141 (the elite operatives from the game). TF Intelligence would send out missions for consumers to complete. Missions drove players to social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, and Wikipedia to gather intelligence and text it back to TF Intelligence. Each of the 10 missions was its own sweepstakes with a chance to win.
And a “One Million Ruble” giveaway. To push sell-through of the game and create a final way to engage the consumer over the 40 days, we created a scratch game. Game pieces were given out at the time of game pickup at GameStop stores nationwide. The premise of the game was that the bank account of Vladimir Makarov (the game’s villain) had been seized and GameStop was cutting its customers in on the loot.. There were over a thousand chances to win the grand prize: A briefcase filled with 100,000 Russian rubles.
impact
Soon after the launch of “Modern Warfare 2,” it was announced that the final pre-order total had exceeded our original goal by 31%.
This integrated campaign generated excitement in the marketplace and, more importantly, drove sales. The microsite, sweepstakes, mobile game, and scratch game engaged participants, pushed the pre-order message, and successfully created excitement for the limited-edition prizes.
