Run The Village
Napoleon Games
Issue 28 | September 2013
Agency
Duval Guillaume
Creative Team
Creative Directors: Geoffrey Hantson, Katrien Bottez Creatives: Dieter De Ridder, Ad Van Ongeval
Production Team
Production Company: Czar.be Director: Koen Mortier DOP: Stephan Langensteiner Executive Producer: Eurydice Gysel Producer: Lander Engels Agency TV Producer: Marc Van Buggenhout Digital Producer: Bart Vermijlen Development and Design: The Parkinglot Post Production: Het Digitaal Geweld Sound Studio: Cobra
Other Credits
Account Team: Sylvie Verbruggen, Julie Maris Strategic Planners: Kris Hoet, Maarten Van Herck Clients: Mieke Michiels, Pieter-Jan Haegeman, Tom De Clecq
Date
May 2013
Background
Napoleon Games was the market leader in Gambling Entertainment in Belgium with more than 20 gambling lounges dotted around the country.
In 2012 they took gambling online. www.napoleon-games.be became the most popular online games provider with games such as American Roulette, Dice Spinner, French Roulette, Jackpot Spinner, Viva Las Vegas and others.
The company extended its activities into sports and events betting. Belgians were able to place bets on 37 different sports from football, tennis, basketball and cycling to more unusual sports such as American Football, ice hockey and martial arts.
Idea
To launch this sports betting facility, Napoleon Games innovated with an online commercial on which viewers could place a bet. The film showed an absurd race between seven different and bizarre sportsmen including a mulleted footballer with a ball literally sticking to his foot, a cyclist with poor eyesight and even a driver with horse and sulky cart.
After a couple of seconds the online film froze and the viewer was invited to predict, free of charge, who would win. The film then continued until the race was run. Viewers who made the correct choice were able to win € 500 worth of gaming credit.
Those who went back and re-ran the video discovered the end was never the same.
The film can be viewed at: http://dvlgll.me/11O04C4
Results
The Run The Village campaign video got 4.254 views. Of all the visits to the website over 79% watched the intro video. And players picked on average 2.8 runners to run through the village.
Overall the campaign got good comments on several blogs and was mentioned several times as being a top example of branded content.
http://socialmediatoday.com/jacey- gulden/1458626/best-branded- content-week-may-12-2013
Our Thoughts
At Directory, we characterise direct as being any piece of communications that gets people to do something. This certainly falls into that category. We also recognise that there is direct direct, which is transactional, and indirect direct, which is brand building.
Every now and then you come across an idea like this, which is both. It gives a clear sense of the brand’s values (entertaining, fun) and its purpose (gambling) but at the same time it doesn’t just give people the chance to get involved by choosing a winner but to start spending money with their winnings.
More clever thinking and joyous execution from Duval Guillaume, currently one of the hottest agencies in the world.