? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Beta-7

When Wieden+Kennedy New York proposed promoting SEGA ESPN Football by launching a conspiracy theory that the game was dangerously realistic, we couldn't resist getting involved. Confronted with a dominant competitor with an earlier release date, SEGA needed to capture attention from gamers in advance of the release - and blowing minds is always a good way to do it.

What emerged was the story of one of the game's early beta testers and his personal crusade to block the game's release (against the apparent efforts of the game developers to whitewash away the dangerousness of their product.) The videogame community were dropped into an uncomfortable world of lies, deception, medical evidence, stolen beta copies of the game, ambush videos, "fake" blogs and suppositions in a campaign that incorporated everything from interactive marketing to embedded product design.

The result wasn't just an effective (if controversial) marketing campaign, it was a wake-up call to the advertising industry of just how far an integrated advertising approach could bend the lines between entertainment and marketing (and became the "darling of the ad awards" that year among other advertising agencies.)