Category: Best use or integration of experiential events
Advertiser: MICROSOFT / XBOX 360 KINECT
Product/Service: DANCE CENTRAL 2 GAME
Agency: ENSEMBLE
Managing Director: Kluger Jacques (Ensemble)
Managing Director: Foisset Laurent
Director Marketing Xbox/Entertainment: Dufour David (Microsoft)
Marketing Group Manager Xbox/Windows Games: Cedrick Delmas (Microsoft)
Media placement: Radio Spots - Radio Station - 1 November 2011
Media placement: TV Billboards - TV Channel - 26 November 2011
Media placement: Facebook - Online - 1 November 2011
Media placement: Display - Online - 1 November 2011
Campaign Description
Branded entertainment is quite new in the classic French media. Product placement on TV is only possible in musical videos or fictional support.
It is impossible to place a product in an entertainment program. In this case, we achieved a kind of product placement in a concert broadcast 3 hours later on one of the main French TV channels. Which product placement ? A kind of flash mob integrated to the show: a potential world record.
So, we have to anticipate the legislation to broadcast our branded entertainment right before the broadcast of the show ‘Starfloor’.
The idea: integrate Starfloor in order to make 10,000 people dance choreography from the video game Dance Central 2. Then, film the performance and broadcast it in the evening as a commercial right before the airing of the concert.
Effectiveness
«Dance Central 2: the challenge» is a plan put into place by Xbox 360 during the Fun Radio & W9 Starfloor event.
Xbox 360 made the crazy bet to make 10,000 people dance together using the same choreography extracted from the game Dance Central 2.
The operation started with tutorials video of Hakim Ghorab, the Starfloor choreographer, placed online. The videos were meant to raise public awareness and help them learn the moves.
A Facebook page has been created, gathering 10,000 fans before the event.
At the same time, Fun Radio launched its promotion campaign through their website and on the radio by creating a game contest.
Every morning during a week, the Fun Radio crew chose 1 video among all those sent in. The 5 funniest videos won their tickets to the stage.
Xbox 360 also launched a casting to recruit 100 dancers among the Parisian dance schools. They had the mission to reproduce the Usher choreography from Dance Central 2 and to train and guide the crowd all day long, from the queue to the show.
The event:
The 100 dancers rehearsed the choreography in front of Bercy and the audience.
Then in the concert hall, the 5 winners danced on-stage.
The French TV station, W9, recorded the image of the 10,000 people dancing together. This was then edited down to a 90-second commercial (approved by Microsoft) and broadcast the same night during the retransmission of the «Dancefloor» event.
Implementation
‘Starfloor’ is a dance music concert involving different famous French and international artists.
Starfloor is produced by 2 national media: Fun Radio, the first dance music national radio station, and ‘W9’, a national TV channel about music and entertainment.
Firstly, we built a partnership with Fun Radio to create a dedicated website that was completely integrated on the radio website. Radio commercials were broadcast during the month of November to promote the challenge and we created a Facebook page to gather a maximum of people going to the concert. Video and incitation messages were also uploaded.
Outcome
The Results:
Xbox 360 established a new world record validated by the Guinness World Records as “the largest simultaneous dancing game routine involving 10,730 participants dancing to ‘DJ Got Us Falling in Love Again’ on the Xbox 360 game Dance Central 2, organised by Starfloor at Palais Omnisport de Paris Bercy, in France, on 26 November 2011.”
The Facebook fan page recorded 10,013 fans in total.
Media Visibility:
Buoyed by the success of the operation, W9 and Fun Radio already plan to renew the event next year.
The performance:
Dozens of videos posted on the web by participants.
Hundreds of comments on the Starfloor and the Fun Radio Facebook pages.
The impact on the brand:
Best-selling Kinect Game in the last trimester of 2011 in France.
Dance Central 2 was the best-selling dance game on platform Xbox 360 in the second semester of 2011 in France.