| Title | RUN THAT TOWN |
| Brand | AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS |
| Product / Service | CENSUS |
| Category | A08. Best Use of Other Digital Platforms (Incl. Mobile Devices) |
| Entrant | LEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA |
| Entrant Company | LEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA |
| Advertising Agency | LEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Mark White | Millipede | Designer |
| Eclectic Music Machine | Eclectic Music Machine | Music |
| Keong Seet | Leo Burnett Sydney | Animator |
| Toby Pederson | Leo Burnett Sydney | Animator |
| David Giuca | Millipede | Animator |
| Patrick Toohey | Millipede | Developer |
| Millipede | Millipede | Technology Partner/Company |
| Neil Duncan | Leo Burnett Sydney | Senior Business Manager |
| Paul Everson | Leo Burnett Sydney | Group Business Director |
| Adrian Gunadi | Leo Burnett Sydney | Producer |
| Kevin Brown | Leo Burnett Sydney | Technical Director |
| John-Henry Pajak | Leo Burnett Sydney | Illustrator |
| David Mugford | Leo Burnett Sydney | Designer |
| Ayla Norris-Smith | Leo Burnett Sydney | Copywriter |
| Kieran Ots | Leo Burnett Sydney | Copywriter |
| Zaid Al-Asady | Leo Burnett Sydney | Art Director |
| Kieran Ots | Leo Burnett Sydney | Art Director |
| Kieran Ots | Leo Burnett Sydney | Creative Director |
| Andy Dilallo | Leo Burnett Sydney | Chief Creative Officer |
Within days of launch, Run That Town shot to number 1 in the Entertainment category on Apple’s App store, outranking popular commercial gaming titles. The game also generated huge amounts of PR, was featured on hundreds of blogs, podcasts and reported on national radio. Articles and reviews have appeared in sites including CNet, Gizmodo, Kotaku and Buzzfeed. But most importantly, Run That Town has already been downloaded more than 65,000 times, giving Australians a new appreciation of the Census data of their own local neighbourhoods, and showing them just how big a role those numbers play in all our lives.
We took the data from every suburb in Australia and turned it into a game. Run That Town is an iPhone game that lets players take control of their own suburb, and make decisions about whether projects should be approved or rejected in their own local area. The reaction of the townsfolk to each of your decisions is based on the real Census data of your town, making consulting the Census data key to maintaining your popularity. The game was released free on Apple’s app store, and was supported by a dedicated PR campaign that targeted gaming and technology sites. The game itself leverages social channels too - an in-game newspaper writes custom articles about the player based on their decisions and the reaction of their virtual townsfolk, with each article sharable through Twitter and Facebook.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics wanted to make more Australians aware of the importance of the latest release of Census data. This data is hugely important – it helps guide policy and planning decisions that ultimately affect every Australian. Unfortunately, most Australians aren’t particularly interested in statistics. But they do love gaming. In Australia, the average age of a gamer is 32, and 75% of gamers are over 18. Mobile has been a huge driver of this gaming trend, with 51% of all Australians aged 16+ owning a smartphone at time of briefing - with 58% of men and 59% of women using those devices to play games. We realised that if we built an engaging game around the Census data, we could help people understand the importance of data in the best possible way – by letting them use it for themselves.