THE SIMS. YOU CREATE. YOU CONTROL. YOU RULE.

TitleTHE SIMS. YOU CREATE. YOU CONTROL. YOU RULE.
BrandEA GAMES
Product / ServiceTHE SIMS 4
CategoryE05. Influencer / Talent
EntrantARENA MEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Media ARENA MEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation ARENA MEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production ARENA MEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Mark Campbell Arena Media Australia Head of Content and Creative Partnerships

The Campaign

To reach all three target groups we decided to bring The Sims to life as an interactive live-stream event using influencers and user-generated content. Core Fans: Sims expert - utilise their authority and insight. Gamers: bring to life the virtual world they love so much. Give the audience control. Non-Gamers: relevant cultural influencer to entice engagement. Our idea: have influencers (our Sims) brought to life via a live-stream video of a real life ‘The Sims’ environment - complete with different obstacles, options and people - on social platforms and have users control the Sims through real-time comments to create the ultimate The Sims 4 virtual event! THE SIMS 4. YOU CREATE. YOU CONTROL. YOU RULE. SOLUTION PRE-PROMOTE WITH OWNED AND EARNED ASSETS: On-Air, Digital Display, Social, Content ACTIVATE WITH SHARED AND PAID ASSETS: Live Stream Event, Online Promotion POST-EVENT PUSH WITH OWNED AND PAID ASSETS: Wrap Up Video, Social, In-Read

Creative Execution

To promote the launch we created a series of radio spots, as well as live on-radio reads during Angus's show to entice all three of our target audiences to get involved. We also leveraged 2DAY FM's, Angus O'Loughlin's, Deligracy's and WSU's social networks to increase our audience reach across owned and shared channels leading up to and during the live-stream. THE LIVE STREAM At 12pm on a very wet Friday we went live. Over the course of 25 minutes our Sim completed various tasks (from break-dancing to yoga) across the WSU campus with Deligracy our host as the intermediary between Angus and the fans controlling him. In real-time they were guided by users watching and commenting on 2DAY FM'S Facebook page in order to win EA Games and The Sims 4 Prize packs as well as laptops and other gaming prizes.

• Smashed live streaming benchmarks of 7-10K viewers with 22K live streamers (double the amount of viewers of daytime TV in Metro 5 Cap cities against same audience targeting) in 25 minutes • 1.5k live comments/instructions for "Sims" • Within two days after the live stream, video secured over 110k views on Facebook • Reached new audience - 345k people with $0 paid spend behind the actual video on social. • Engagement rate of 6.8% vs. the industry benchmark of a 2% • Our30 second campaign wrap-up video gained an additional 4K views on Facebook • We received national PR coverage across Australia and praise from the Chancellor of the Western Sydney University, commending the great effort by all parties for such an innovative way to engage young people • The biggest live-stream to date for 2DAY FM and received radio trade press - another Australian first. All on $60K.

A content-driven campaign built on three partnerships: 1. We engaged Deligracy, a well-known Sims YouTube vlogger, who would be able to reach core Sims fans as our live-stream host. 2. Sydney radio station 2DAY FM gave us a wide audience reach, so we engaged their host Angus O'Loughlin as our second influencer and real-life Sim. 2DAY FM also helped us access the technology we needed to create the live-stream. In an Australian first, we used a GoPro to live-stream Sims activation on their Facebook Page. 3. To create a 'sandbox' game environment for our Sims, we reached out to our sister PR agency Red and together brought their client Western Sydney University (WSU) on-board. WSU's involvement would bring earned awareness and to further increase user engagement we decided to involve students from their Computer Programming and Game Development courses, and asked them to create the challenges for our real-life Sims.

Links

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