Winner: Microsoft and Edelman PR
Campaign: Microsoft Xbox Colony Turns the Gaming World Upside Down
Die-hard gamers aged 16 to 28 are notoriously hard to please, but they also spend upwards of $100 a month on games. These natural viral targets can be a major challenge, given
their brains and high expectations, but they are one worth aiming for.
When Microsoft Xbox was preparing to launch its new gaming console, Xbox 360, it needed to create a nontraditional PR campaign to make sure the effort didn't fall flat. The
result was "Colony," a Web-based, underground game that Edelman projected would hit the target market square in the bull's eye.
Edelman's objectives were three-fold: build an active community that could work for future Xbox launches, too; generate a groundswell of anticipation for the May launch; and
develop a mechanism to publicize the Xbox 360 launch in print and online gaming media. To pique gamers' curiosity, the campaign was anonymous right up to the launch date - no one
knew who was behind the game that was driving thousands to play at http://www.colony.net.
On the Colony home page, visitors were greeted by the mysterious Ant logo, a morphing globe-like object, and a cryptic message in gamer dialect inviting them to play. Once they
formed or joined a Colony, players were taken to that Colony's personalized Web page. Over several weeks, teams were presented with puzzles; for each correct answer, they received
a clue about the soon-to-be-revealed Xbox 360 system.
Edelman employed word-of-mouth marketing tactics to generate interest, including a fictional Colony leader, "gamem8ker," who sent e-mail messages to gaming networks. They also
created a profile on Myspace.com that invited people to play, and showcased the Colony Ant logo in gamer handouts and on MTV. Maintaining Microsoft's anonymity helped to build
buzz, and by the launch date, gamers' speculations were quite lively.
The company's new approach to word-of-mouth marketing paid off in a big way. Colony attracted nearly 16,000 teams and 110,000 individual gamers, and Xbox received 746,012 site
visits on the night of the Webcast that launched the product; within a few days, that number had expanded to 1 million. Media outreach resulted in 30 standalone articles. Game
forums exploded with Colony buzz in half a dozen languages. Xbox's distribution centers were swamped post-launch, and the Xbox 360 units were sold out for weeks.
Honorable Mentions
Travelocity: The Customer's Champion: Travelocity & Vollmer Public Relations With a roaming gnome and a dedicated staff, online travel agency Travelocity made an
"experience-based guarantee" to make itself "The Customer's Champion." Aside from generating more than 40 million impressions, the travel company also received Fast Company's 2005
"Customer's First Award" and increased its revenue by 65 percent.
Consumers Keep the Change: Bank of America: Bank of America and MWW Group When Bank of America needed to make its "Keep the Change" promotion rise above the noise of its merger
with Fleet, MWW Group built a multi-tiered, three-month launch strategy, which involved an event that earned our Platinum PR Award for best Media Event: customers searched for
"loose change" in an enormous red sofa in New York City's Grand Central Station. Radio promotions, a "Change Jar" press kit, blogs and a survey on holiday shopping and saving
habits rounded out the campaign, which generated 140 million media impressions.
"Creating The Knowledge Source": Medco Health Solutions & Coyne Public Relations Medco, a subsidiary of a pharmaceutical company that spun off in 2003, needed its own
image. Coyne Public Relations built a 12-month campaign to influence 60,000 benefit managers by informing 200 million Americans through a "Circle of Influence" based on Medco's
532 million annual prescription claims and internal experts. The company's corporate reputation rose 20 percent from 2004 to 2005, a survey of customers showed Medco had become
the first brand of choice, and the media ran 4,000 positive branded stories.