Case Studies

www.weirdyetwonderful.com

Ignition Entertainment approached Stickee to create a campaign for their new game Mercury Hg. Available for download on XBLA and PSN, it challenges the gamer to try and keep a “mercury blob” intact by tilting its environment. The levels are filled with all kinds of crazy obstacles, uneven surfaces and moving objects.

So its an addictive puzzle based game that is genuinely fun to play but unlike most games there are no characters or narrative to base a concept on...so what do we do? Well...we create our own character, back story and make a mockumentary of course! The spoof documentary excerpt follows the life of Danish born Arron Josefsen also known as Mercury Man. The four minute online film is accompanied by a 30 second teaser and other short clips.

From the site…
Arron's Dad was a hat maker in his native Denmark and used mercury extensively in his studio. The substance's vapours, used for felting the hats, were attributed to causing disturbing physical and mental side-effects - hence the term 'mad as a Hatter'. Arron experienced mercurialism himself first hand when, as a child, he became obsessed by the substance and ingested the liquid. Against all odds Arron survived, but was left with some incredibly strange side-effects as a result.

The Mercury Man documentary is intended to be perceived as the first episode in the series entitled 'Weird Yet Wonderful'. Stickee has added validity to the films narrative by producing a spoof website as well as creating a mercury man Facebook page and giving Arron his own Facebook account. Users that choose to like the Mercury Man page will have access to extra 'behind the scenes' footage that will be released over the campaign duration. Users that choose to add Arron as a friend can have direct interaction with the 'Mercury' man himself.

The direct connectivity to the advertised product; 'Mercury HG' has been designed in such a way that it is an obvious click through for traffic without interfering with the believability of the narrative, showing as a sponsored banner within the site and as a liked page on the Facebook pages. Dialogue between Mercury Man and the 'Mercury HG' page owners also helps to re-affirm the story.

Square Enix wanted us to produce a viral campaign that would promote the European launch of Dragon Quest VIII. The franchise, one of the most successful and valuable in Japan, was to make its debut to a European audience which had as yet never heard of the series. The VIII was dropped from the name and Stickee were asked to produce a pan-European digital campaign.

Following the general success of video viral campaigns and ‘live’ webcam style interactive, such as “the subservient chicken”, we decided to push this concept and produce a fully interactive viral video. The aim of the viral was simple: To communicate the message that Dragon Quest is so good that you won’t want to stop playing. We illustrate this point by inviting users to try and disrupt Nobu Yamada, an avid DQ fan, from his world record attempt to play the longest ever game of Dragon Quest.

Users can interact with Nobu and his environment triggering a multitude of differing reactions. The game encourages the user to investigate the room which is full with Dragon Quest merchandise adding value to the brand. Once you raise Nobu’s temper to breaking point, he stops his game and begins venting his frustration at the player; ranting, gesturing and other crazy behaviour.

The game has three levels. Nobu has three different reactions depending on how distracted he becomes. So, he can appear unfazed, be slightly irritated or become furious. The game is programmed so that each time a user clicks on a ‘distraction object’ one of three videos is played and Nobu’s reaction is displayed. There is a correct sequence of distractions and the closer the user gets to this over the three levels the angrier Nobu becomes. The winning combination enables the user to stop him playing altogether and results in him literally fuming.

The beauty of using a Japanese character was that aside from adding a humorous aspect to the game it made it very easy to cater for a European audience as we simply used European subtitles.

The viral proved really popular and was mentioned in a number of industry magazines. The Viral achieved over 80,000 plays over a three month period and was sent on to friends over 10,000 times.

CBBC’s brief to us was to create a Christmas presence on their site. The concept of the project was to reflect CBBC Christmas broadcast programming and prime releases such as Chronicles of Narnia and The Brothers Grimm. The main objective of the site was to include a mechanic that would bring kids back to the site throughout the Xmas period to drive traffic to CBBC content.

At the heart of the project would be a portal microsite linking to an interactive adventure game, Christmas downloads and CBBC content.

We developed a strong central narrative that could encapsulate the game, portal and online content, creating a fully integrated project. The fable-like tale, ‘The Magic Globe’, followed our hero, Jacob; a small boy who gets sucked into an old snow globe, only to find another world. The story, told through five chapters, formed the basis of the interactive game, a ‘point-and-click’ adventure where Jacob must collect hidden cogs throughout four quirky levels, ultimately rejuvenating Immanuel’s magical snow-blower and bringing snow back to the land once more.

Our solution to keep kids coming back to the site throughout December, in true Christmas spirit, was to offer kids a completely original six-track ‘CBBC Christmas Album' using the music featured within the game. The downloads were offered on the site with an advent-style release schedule. Alongside these music tracks were five audio versions of the story that were narrated by CBBC presenters. The audio stories were unlocked by collecting the cogs from within the game and other cogs that were hidden within the content pages of the microsite. Personal progress was stored on a page within the site, with the album artwork and a snowy animation on the site appearing when all the cogs had been found.

If that wasn’t enough, the character and level artwork was used to create downloadable cards, decorations, garlands, wrapping paper and an entire ‘Magic Globe’ diorama.

The site proved so successful for CBBC that they decided to re-use it the following year.

Final Fantasy XI is a console and computer massive multiplayer online game developed and published by Square Enix. A major critical and commercial success, the game remains arguably the most popular title in an ongoing series, and Stickee was asked to promote it online!

The strap line for the campaign was ‘Get into the Game’; we decided to take this literally. We always talk about getting addicted to computer games; of course we do, in a virtual world, we are able to do things we can’t in real life! So, we asked a group of actors and fans to imagine they are really inside the world of Final Fantasy. A situation from Final Fantasy was described to them, for example we asked them to imagine they can cast fire balls from their hands. Individually, they were filmed acting out the scene.

Casting tapes are hilarious. People look uncomfortable, silly and generally embarrass themselves in an effort to secure the role. These cringe-worthy moments are priceless and the ‘raw’ look of the footage combined with the unpolished and unrehearsed actor performances had the potential to produce side-splitting results! We wanted to cast for typical stereotype characters and put them in these surreal game situations i.e. stereotypes doing something completely non-stereotypical and unexpected. For example, an attractive blonde girl is actually a stealthy FFXI ninja, a middle age mum is a black mage or a gruff 30 year-old cockney guy is actually a warrior samurai.

The viral videos were put out as banners on game sites and stood out a mile in terms of visual differentiation. We also put a compilation together and seeded it through youtube.

Oh yes...and that is famous glamour model Emily Scott on the reel....obviously doing this before reaching the height of her fame but she did seem to enjoy herself.

BBC Worldwide commissioned Stickee to create an online interactive that would increase awareness of the Supervolcano docu-drama and provide additional content by expanding the main concepts introduced in the programme. The main requirements were that the interactive should not be too 'game-like' and suitable for the primary target audience of older children (12-15) and adults aged between 29 and 45.

Following some intensive research the main task was to simplify an incredibly complex scenario into 3 main issues: communication, transportation and emergency services. The strategy interactive places the user in the position of head of the Emergency Management Agency for the fictional Bluebear County. The player must then manage public awareness, organise traffic flows, identify hazard zones and establish refuge camps for evacuees within 6 minutes before the scenario plays through and the volcano erupts!

The final interactive successfully extends the programme experience by combining great design with engaging gameplay. The combination of an intuitive interface and ambient details such as the news ticker help create an engaging user experience.

BBC Radio 4 wanted Stickee to create a campaign that would raise awareness of their new series of weekly comedy shows and help reinforce their position as the channel for fresh new comedy entertainment.

Stickee designed a funny interactive viral comedy show simulating an 1800’s vaudeville style of theatre with Radio 4’s top comedians taking centre stage. Viewers can interact with the props on stage to select their favourite caricatured acts, all taken from popular Radio 4 comedy sketches. The caricature designs took inspiration from the popular American adult cartoon ‘South Park’ and the comedy clips were sourced from shows by Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higgins, Ross Noble and Laura Solon.

Stickee broadened the target age group by combining a classic cabaret style show with up to the minute comedy from popular talents that people of all ages will know. The campaign lasted for 3 months and gained on average 70,000 views per month.

We receievd a pretty open brief of creating a new game for the Childrens BBC website that was based around a magical theme.

We created the 'Magic Mansion'. A one or two player platform game featuring the characters Eduardo and Demelza, the children of the master magician Joseph Frost. Their father has been kidnaped and his magic sabotaged causing the release of rampaging rabbits, crazed playing cards and half sawn assistants.

The child works through each level collecting keys whilst avoiding the nasty magic to unlock the door to progress to the next stage. In each level there are a number of bonus items that can be collected to increase your score and in true Mario Brothers style the scores are worked out at the end of each level dependant on how many lives were lost, the time it took and the bonuses collected. There is also a magic hat that randomly appears for seconds on each level. If the child can collect it before it disappears then they are taken to a timed bonus level that allows the further collection of bonus items. Scores are kept in a high score table for a competitive element.

As an added incentive to the game mechanic we placed video of a real magician performing a trick at the end of each level. As the child progresses through the levels the secrets behind the magic tricks are exposed allowing them to perform their own magic.

Magic Mansion is a playable platform game that is one of the most popular games on the CBBC games platform.

Oracle's main objectives were to continue the momentum behind WebLogic Portal (WLP) demand and to build pipeline for the following 4-6 months. We had to revitalize the essence of the previous campaign, but narrow the focus to the latest WLP version. We concentrated on positioning BEA WebLogic Portal 10.0 as the next generation Portal application, while being super creative throughout.

The concept was to create an unusual, immersive and personalised interactive viral, housed within a unique microsite. Recipients of BEA’s mailing list would receive an email prompting them to find their colleagues happy portal ending. On landing at the special microsite, visitors can choose from a drop-down menu of fields in a beautifully stylish, illustrated fairytale book, and create a story for a friend or colleague in various jobs and sectors of BEA’s target audience.

From these selections, a witty and specifically personalised fairytale style story is created. It begins by telling a story of woe, describing for example how Brian’s current portal technology just wasn’t doing a good enough job. The story then goes on to explain how the perfect portal solution can be found with WebLogic portal 10.0, providing key links for registration, newsletter sign-up and case study information.

The client delivered exceptionally positive feedback on all areas of this project and the statistical results were comfortably met. This project has gained Stickee the unusual experience of successfully working on B2B marketing.

Our brief was to create a new character based I.P. for Avery Dennsion's back to school range. The character(s) needed to appeal to both males and females in the early school years (ages 11 to 13) and would be printed onto their entire stationery range from folders to pencil cases. The I.P. needed to be supported with a microsite.

We created the 'eggbods' brand. Egg shaped characters all with a similar base look to them. The base egg body was then characterised with more detail making them similar beings but unique in look and personality... a positive message which we hoped would promote the acceptance of diversity. The first set of character designs we completed were random based on contemporary human character influences. Based on the success of this first character set we were then commissioned to do a second, naming it 'eggbods through time', we time ordered characters using key historic styles. Mixing these characters up with more funny entertaining references taught a subtle history lesson and Avery found through research that children were interested in finding out more about the characters that they were not familiar with.

We supported the IP with a flash website in which a child could either choose their own eggbod or create their own custom designed eggbod. After they were happy with their chosen eggbod they could then print it out on other Avery Dennison 'blank canvas' products including their infamous sticky labels. The result was an increase in the cross selling of products that the target audience would never had otherwise engaged with.

To support the launch of the Piggley Winks show for the PBS 'Kids' channel in the USA, Stickee was commissioned to produce a set of six themed edutainment games for the microsite. The games, aimed at a target audience of 4-7 years, needed to reflect the brand values of the show, harnessing imagination, developing social skills and sharing lessons through storytelling.

Working to PBS specifications and taking advice from veteran Interactive Media Educational Consultant, Adrienne Schure, Stickee developed six games designed to inspire interaction between children and adults alike. Play was encouraged over competition and this was supported by extra incentives such as the congratulations page and printable award certificates.

The final games combine rich, colourful graphics and 3D environments with well balanced gameplay. The games have so far had over 500,000 unique visitors and have since been resold to the BBC.

BBC Worldwide used the footage from the BBC's successful show 'Blue Planet' to compose a film version. With a new musical score by George Fenton which tied in with the video it was seen in similar respects to Disney's 'Fantasia', using natural history of the oceans instead of cartoons. We were simply asked to produce an interactive and a screensaver which would appeal to an international target audience and sit within a promotional micro site which the BBC interactive team were producing themselves.

The main interactive was based around the actual build of the film. We used the premise of cutting original footage and then editing it to a musical score to come up with the idea of giving the user the same control with a set number of resources. The idea developed into the production of a web based movie editing studio. The user can choose from a large selection of video clips in the archive and lay them down on a timeline. They can then add visual effects such as a fade-in as well as choosing a musical score. The user could then save their progress allowing them to retrieve their productions for later use. The idea for the screensaver was to create a sustainable promotion. Set in an ocean scene, we created different fish as separate entities. Each fish had its own look and its own behaviour. The idea was setup so that fish could be released in strategic stages prior to the films release.

The result is a beautiful looking, functional set of products which integrate with the films theme. They are entertaining, educational and did a great job of promoting the film.