The Challenge: Activision needed a clever, unexpected way to generate massive buzz about their casting of Kevin Spacey as the villain in their upcoming blockbuster, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
The Solution: To drive media and fan speculation, an audio clip was leaked to the press containing a secret embedded spectrogram image revealing that Kevin Spacey was somehow associated with the franchise.
The Results: Generating maximum speculation and reaching a mainstream audience, the audio clip was featured by Complex, Entertainment Weekly, and Variety, ultimately landing in a coveted position on Yahoo! Games’ homepage.
Fans and influencers of the game continued to spread the buzz, confirming the existence of the spectrogram image in YouTube videos and blogs. The execution generated over 300M potential impressions, generated 90% positive sentiment, and helped lead to a record-breaking 21M views of the game’s reveal trailer.
Awards:
• Mashies: Finalist, Best Interactive Audio
• PRSA Prism Awards: Best Digital PR Program
• PRSA Prism Awards: Best Creative Tactics
• Creative Media Awards: 1st Place (Best Audio)
• PR News: Finalist, Wow! Award
• ADDY Awards: Gold, Non-Traditional Advertising
• IAC: Outstanding Online Campaign
• GMAs: Gold, Most Effective Buzz-Generating
• GMAs: Bronze, Thinking Outside the Box
• Mashies: Finalist, Best Interactive Audio
• PRSA Prism Awards: Best Digital PR Program
• PRSA Prism Awards: Best Creative Tactics
• Creative Media Awards: 1st Place (Best Audio)
• PR News: Finalist, Wow! Award
• ADDY Awards: Gold, Non-Traditional Advertising
• IAC: Outstanding Online Campaign
• GMAs: Gold, Most Effective Buzz-Generating
• GMAs: Bronze, Thinking Outside the Box