SimCity: LET'S ALL BE MAYOR

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: ELECTRONIC ARTS
Agency: DRAFTFCB
Category: Durable Goods
Advertising campaign: LET'S ALL BE MAYOR
Digital Artist: Arron Creechley (Draftfcb SF)
Account Supervisor: Alexis Lovett (Draftfcb SF)
Associate Creative Director: Chris Hancock (Draftfcb SF)
Agency Producer: Jeremy Arth (Draftfcb Sf)
Associate Creative Director: Rob Katzenstein
Senior Planner: Ryan Riley (Draftfcb SF)
Associate Creative Director: Scott Drey (Draftfcb SF)
Group Creative Director: Tony Vazquez (Draftfcb SF)
Group Creative Director: Colin McRae (Draftfcb SF)
Senior Account Executive: Dan Sharkey (Draftfcb SF)
Account Director: Will Egan (Draftfcb SF)
Senior Vice President Planning/Strategy: Dirk Herbert (Draftfcb SF)
Copywriter: Elaine Cox (Draftfcb SF)
Interactive Producer: Leslie Ernst
Designer: Phil Vo

Client Brief Or Objective
SimCity is a groundbreaking videogame franchise that singlehandedly created a new gaming genre. After a seven-year absence, SimCity was reimagined and ready to be re-launched. Unlike action videogames with characters, story and Hollywood-like explosions, SimCity is about infrastructure, complexity, puzzle solving, and creativity. Each game is different. It needs to be played to be appreciated. We needed more than a TV spot. We needed to find a way to give gamers a true sense of how much fun it is to play the new SimCity.

Implementation
'Let’s All Be Mayor' enlisted a global audience in the creation (and destruction) of a new SimCity every day for seven days.For four hours a day, we live-streamed as a SimCity developer ran the game simulation, and two comedians provided humorous, cheeky commentary. Consumers guided the fate of the city by voting on major mayoral decisions and voicing their opinions on Facebook and Twitter. The experience ended up being way more than just a gameplay video. It was an interactive entertainment experience that engaged consumers with the game and sparked a vibrant dialogue beyond our expectations.

Outcome
We set out to drive engagement and buzz. The response was overwhelmingly positive.We garnered over 1.4m views and 363,000 votes. Close to 500,000 visitors spent an average of 27 minutes on LetsAllBeMayor.com in contrast to the three minutes visitors spend on SimCity.com. SimCity Twitter impressions tripled from 7.1m to 21.3m during the campaign. Sentiment across Twitter and Facebook was extremely positive. And while engagement and buzz were the primary goals, LetsAllBeMayor.com drove nearly a quarter of its visitors directly to SimCity.com’s pre-order page and contributed to SimCity exceeding its aggressive sales goal by 10%.

Relevancy
'Let’s All Be Mayor' was designed to showcase the exciting new game features and how irresistibly fun the gameplay experience is. By bringing consumers together and encouraging them to participate, the campaign celebrated SimCity’s new multiplayer functionality. Each day’s unique gameplay theme showed the depth and breadth of the game, and the fun that arose from the unscripted moments in the broadcast reinforced the game’s potential for delivering entertaining surprises. Finally, the use of cheeky comedians and clever poll questions captured the 'refreshingly offbeat' tone the brand is known for.