Never before has the storied Halo game franchise allowed its characters to be taken from their fictional sci-fi world and dropped into ours. In a new campaign for the RTS (Real Time Strategy) game, Halo Wars 2, Xbox and 343 Industries partnered with 215MCCANN and director Randy Krallman of Smuggler to do just that.
The campaign imagines its two major characters, the alien giant General Atriox and heroically human Captain Cutter, engaged in a War of Wit–in relatable, real-life comedic situations in which the two use their strategic military minds to fight it out over the ownership of an airplane armrest and the price of a used car.
The latter, titled “The Sale,” has the two larger than life protagonists haggling over the price of a car–General Atriox being the used car salesman, and Captain Cutter as the prospective customer.
The key to victory, as strategy gamers will appreciate: Know your enemy.
The series of films will appear globally in a variety of owned and paid channels (UK broadcast, online and social) with bespoke Snapchat and YouTube bumper executions that tease the films. The 215 team even partnered with the real-life car dealership in one of the films, arranging for General Atriox to be featured as a somewhat alarming employee on their actual website, further blurring the line between the sci-fi game, marketing, and real worlds.
Credits
Client RTS (Real Time Strategy)/Halo Wars 2 Agency 215MCCANN Scott Duchon, chief creative officer; Neil Bruce, creative director; Alper Kologlu, sr. art director; Kyle Davis, copywriter; Brandon Romer, executive producer; Sarah Sweeney, producer; Brian Wakabayashi, director of strategy; Ryan Ouyoumjian, brand strategist. Production Smuggler Randy Krallman director; Patrick Milling Smith, Brian Carmody, Shannon Jones, exec producers; Andrew Colon, COO; Ian Blain, line producer; Darko Suvak, DP. VFX Electric Theatre Collective (ETC), Santa Monica, Calif. Kate Hitchings, exec producer; Scott Boyajan, producer; Eric Mason, lead Flame; Gretchen Capatan, Kevin Jones, Dave Damant, 2D artists; Adam Singer, graphic animation. (Toolbox: Flame, Nuke, After Effects). Editorial Cartel Andy McGraw, editor; Matt Berardi, assistant editor; Meagen Carroll, head of production; Lauren Bleiweiss, exec producer; Marc Altshuler, managing director. Telecine Company 3 Dave Hussey, colorist; Ashley McKim, exec producer; Liza Kerlin, color producer; Jim Harmon, color assistant. Sound Design Brian Emrich, sound designer. Audio Post Lime Studios Jeff Malen, mixer; Susie Boyajan, exec producer
FactSet, a global financial digital platform and enterprise solutions provider, has partnered with Chicago-based creative agency VSA Partners to unveil a second round of spots in its “Not Just the Facts” campaign. The campaign originally launched back in April.
The campaign was built on a core strategic insight: While quality data is critical for financial professionals, facts in isolation provide little value. FactSet’s personalization, data connectivity, open and flexible technology, and dedicated service and support provide the context necessary for the investment community to turn facts into valuable insights--and make the most of them.
The new creative picks up where the previous left off. This time it focuses on a particularly boorish office worker, drolly played by character actor Wyndham Maxwell, who ticks off an encyclopedic list of facts and non sequiturs during business meetings and to the bemusement of his colleagues.
The tongue-in-cheek campaign, which plays more like a perfect-pitch comedy series than a typical B2B commercial effort, is a major departure from financial services industry norm--both in its use of humor and in its humanistic approach. Starting this week, FactSet will roll out 16 unique spots—a combination of :30s, :15s, :06s and nine “shorts”—across multiple channels including digital, streaming and CTV.
This :30, “Dinos,” has an office worker’s relevant reference to dinosaurs spark our boorish colleague who proceeds to utter one irrelevant fact after another about the prehistoric creatures.
The Los Angeles–based Docter Twins (Matthew and Jason Docter) directed the original campaign and this new humorous work through their production company, Thinking Machine. The identical twin... Read More
