BETC Paris has created mayhem in a US street to promote the launch of Ubisoft’s game, Watch_ Dogs. The YouTube video of the stunt was viewed 8,053,274 times in its first five days. The agency has achieved what it set out to do – draw attention to yet another new video game.
In Watch_Dogs, players will assume the role Aiden Pearce, a brilliant hacker whose criminal past led to a violent family tragedy. Players get to hunt down and get revenge on those who hurt his family players by taking control of everything connected to the Chicago’s Central Operating System (ctOS) – in other words, almost every piece of the city’s technology and key information about all of the city’s residents.
The game of sweetness and light (?!), Watch_Dogs, will be available worldwide on May 27, 2014.
Meanwhile, BETC, launched a fantasy game of its own – using real people. And made them think they could control their world. The players were people who put their smartphones in for repair.
The very friendly mobile phone repairer added a bonus gift for each: an app that, he claimed, could hack all the electronic devices in its environment.
His demos were rather compelling. He used the phones to turn street lights off and on, open locked cars, change street lights and make cash spew out of an ATM. But as his tricks escalated, so did the consequences. Eventually, disaster struck.
It was up to the police who arrived to ask, “Do you honestly think a phone can do this, really?” …before the reveal, a screen message: “You’ve just experienced what you can do in the upcoming video game Watch_Dogs.”
Creative credits:
AGENCY: BETC Paris
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Stéphane Xiberras
ART DIRECTOR: Benjamin Le Breton
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR: Antoine Coucoureux
COPYWRITER: Arnaud Assouline
PRODUCERS: Michel Teicher & Tatiana Pierre
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Rita Films
SOUND PRODUCTION: THE
DIRECTOR: Cécilia Verheyden
