CASE STUDIES

BACKGROUND

CAPCOM was 2-months away from launching their biggest game of the year – Dead Rising 2 – and needed to make a splash at the annual E3 Expo in Los Angeles (the CES of the video game industry). When they called on Simon Pure to devise a plan to bring bloggers, buyers and video game fans flooding to their booth they expected a “stunt”. What they got was a program that teased prior to the event, stole the attention from Nintendo’s 3DS launch on the show floor, and provided post-event coverage by hundreds of video game blogs.

THE WEBSITE

Two weeks prior to E3 we launched citizensfortheundead.com: the premise being that CURE (a zombie rights group featured in the video game) was a real entity attempting to educate people about zombie rights. Among other content, the site featured a Zombie “Bill of Rights” and a call to arms to protest against CAPCOM for exploiting zombies and links to other sites developed to support the game’s release.

10,000+ visits prior to “official” site launch
Average time on site of 4 minutes 12 seconds
6,000 downloads of ad banners designed to support CURE and drive to the site

SOCIAL MEDIA

The site was seeded to video game fanatics via Twitter and started a deep dialogue with gamers. How deep? We received over 50 emails a day into a faux CURE email address asking how individuals could support the cause.

THE ACTIVATION

The show floor at E3 is not an easy place to get noticed. Placed in front of the entrance of the booth was a cage. Inside that cage we kept a steady stream of actors made up as zombies. People posed for pictures, teased the zombies and more than a few showed actual fear. The real attention came from stunts run throughout the E3 show floor where a team of actors assembled in front of the booth and protested against the unfair treatment of the caged zombies. They chanted, handed out collateral and even attempted to free the caged zombies only to be “arrested” by a team of security.

THE ACTIVATION

The scene drove huge crowds and an attempt by both Nintendo and Playstation to have us shut down (to no avail) as people were leaving their lines to watch the show. In the end, CAPCOM was awarded with an “E3 Best of Show” award.

Coverage (including video) on more than 350 blogs
Spots filmed for over 35 TV shows
Crowds of up to 300 people

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