agencytwofifteen

...It's A Game Of Emotions

Since breaking away from McCann last year and evolving from T.A.G. to agencytwofifteen, the Interpublic-owned San Francisco shop has been on a roll. Its previous incarnation’s accolades included a Film and Integrated Grand Prix at Cannes for Halo 3 Believe, and the agency has continued its success for Xbox as well as for other clients.

Chief strategy officer Mike Harris and ECD John Patroulis have worked together for a decade, sharpening their creative teeth at TBWAChiat Day in San Francisco, as global strategy director and creative director, respectively. Both were focused on notable accounts including PlayStation, Fox Sports and adidas.

“We had really good training on the adidas account,” explains Harris. “We brought to life the Impossible is Nothing campaign, so what we came up with strategically had to work in different markets around the world. John and I have been working together on global campaigns ever since.”

“The training served us well when we came to work on Xbox,” adds Patroulis. “If you examine how we launched the Xbox 360, you’ll see simple strategic ideas executed in ways to allow people around the world to understand them; content that is concept-driven, dialogue-free and with music instead of people rambling on about the product.”

Emotive entertainment

Patroulis focused on making the audience feel emotions, tuning them into advertising and leaving them wanting more. It’s the merging of entertainment with a gentle nod to the product. Take the Deliver Hope campaign for Xbox, one of numerous installments to promote Halo Reach. It’s a live-action prequel to the game, shot in Prague and directed by Noam Murro.

A majestic tale of courage and sacrifice, it delivers nail-biting entertainment. There’s no peddling of goods, no blatant sales jargon – rather an invitation to partake in the adventure. Opening amid a vicious battle on an unspecified human colony, it follows a Spartan Noble Team defending their planet from invasion.

Kat, one of the team, takes a blistering sprint through the battlefield armed with a small explosive device. She races towards a massive enemy battle cruiser looming in the skies above but, as she nears her target, she’s hit by enemy fire and lands with a thud to the ground.

All seems lost until another Noble Team member sweeps in and picks up the explosive device. Propelled by rockets in his battle suit, he flies up and enters the enemy ship just as the device detonates, sacrificing himself for a larger cause as the vessel explodes.

Deliver Hope features an exquisite score written and produced by New York-based Human, with epic sound design by Brian Emerich. Angus Wall of LA-based Rock Paper Scissors edited the tale. “One thing we really believe in is the power of emotions,” says Patroulis. “They are the most powerful tools you have because no matter how much you try to rationalise a spot or a campaign you’re going to need that final emotional trigger. Too many agencies focus on smart points instead of using emotion.”

The active audience

Harris notes that the rapidly changing technological landscape has created a completely different consumer compared to even a decade ago. “Ten years ago clients could safely reach eyeballs via TV spots and a website,” recalls Harris. “Advertising today is a lot like the music industry; technology began replacing record companies and music suddenly became digitised. If you could grab it, you would.

Today it’s an active audience. We deal a lot with teenagers who are actively in control of what they hear and what they see. We work on solutions that reach the core Xbox demographic.”

Bright Falls for Remedy Entertainment and Xbox further illustrates the agency’s strong desire to plug the viewer into content for the sake of the product. It’s a deliciously sinister web series set in the creepy town of Bright Falls that plays as a prequel to the psychological thriller/action game, Alan Wake. Directed by Philip Van of Little Minx, the series was made available a few weeks before the game launched.

It follows writer Jake Fischer as he visits Bright Falls on business, where he begins to suffer periods of amnesia and black outs. The longer he stays the more violent he becomes during his blackouts. By the end of the chilling storyline Fischer has vanished, seemingly taken over by a dark spirit.

Harris says of the project, “if you create something that delights the audience and makes them feel something emotional during an otherwise mundane day, then they feel they have received a gift. We explain to clients that they need to be delighting their audience because it will make them like their brand.”

Long-form work

The agency used a simple, universal concept to deliver the goods for Nescafé in Mexico. The brand already nets a tasty 90 per cent of all coffee consumed in the country, but that left an elusive challenge – to take such an accepted commodity and make people love it again. The result was Sunshine.

The spot sees a small town awakening to darkness. Curiosity gets the better of the people as they venture out of their homes in search of light. They find the sunshine nearby, it’s magically restored to their town and once again their lives are brightened up, arousing their emotions and optimism in the same way as a cup of Java.

“I love the idea that the brand has to be integrated with the idea,” says Harris of the spot. “We are trying to delight audiences – but in a way that’s purposeful so that people want to engage with the product. As much as your business strategy is in there you’ve got to somehow engender trust and loyalty in the consumer. It’s imperative.”

As for the future, longer-format work is hovering in the wings. Hollywood has already taken note of several of the agency’s campaigns. “We keep coming up with episodic work that nets us 20m views on YouTube, so have had a lot of interested parties approach us to extend some concepts,” explains Harris.

“Now we are starting to dabble around with long-format ideas in a real way, but it’s too early to say. I will admit we’ve already had some interesting conversations. We’ve done some exciting projects for the gaming space, which I think works well for us, and we have received a lot of recognition for it. We will see what lies ahead.”