Halo 4 Key Art Reveal

Background

For Xbox in 2012, nothing was more important than the successful launch of Halo 4. In May, Xbox Consumer Engagement and their team at Wunderman Seattle met to prepare for the release of the game’s key art with aspirations of turning this important but fairly routine PR exercise into something extremely impactful. The ideal solution would reward the Halo faithful for their engagement, but could then ripple out into broader gaming sects and general pop culture. Time was short and budget was shorter, but inspiration struck on the car ride home and a plan was in place by the next day.

Idea

The team identified 730,000 of the most loyal Halo fans, divided them into 32 even segments, and sent members of each group 1/32 of the new artwork, two days before it was scheduled to be revealed. The email contained just enough context to trip the fans’ Halo alarms, but deliberately omitted any explicit directions and did not click out to any online destination.

There was some anxiety that the puzzle wouldn’t be solved or even attempted without guidance. The temptation was to try to channel any community action toward company-owned digital properties. But experience suggested that this marketing-savvy, highly contrarian audience would reject any spoon-fed experience.

The team banked on Halo’s fans being drawn in by the unconventional communication, picking up on the meaning right away, and using their own channels to collaborate on the project. Which they did, proceeding to spread word of their triumph out to the world with a breadth of coverage too costly to buy and a pride of ownership that could never be purchased.

Results

The response from the Halo Nation recipients was overwhelmingly positive and immediate as they had the artwork for the new packaging assembled perfectly within 30 minutes.

The community, still buzzing from their accomplishment, then filled the forums with lively discussion of the art itself, what it meant for the franchise, and how excited they were for the game’s release – exactly what the architects of this campaign had hoped. From there, the gaming media latched on quickly (including a front page story from tastemakers Kotaku within the hour). By the next morning, nearly all major gaming sites covered the story, which spilled over into wider technology, business, and mainstream media.

Wunderman’s Emerging Media team registered an outstanding 92% positive sentiment across the digital landscape.

Our Thoughts

I think this campaign shows a real understanding of its target audience, game fanatics. Because they had been waiting eagerly for the launch of Halo 4, any news was going to be big news, even a snippet about the box art.

A puzzle without clues, the fragments of the artwork distributed around the world, and they had worked out what was happening, why it was happening and had pieced the image together in just thirty minutes.

If ever you want to talk about the power of communities, there you have it. Energy, purpose and a willingness to engage with the marketing because it was relevant and intelligent.

Five-star thinking from Wunderman Seattle.