Title	THE JOKER'S JOB INTERVIEW
Brand	WARNER BROS INTERACTIVE
Product/Service	VIDEO GAME
Category	A09. LAUNCH OR RE-LAUNCH
Entrant Company	SID LEE Paris, FRANCE
Advertising Agency	SID LEE Paris, FRANCE
Production Company	WANDA PRODUCTIONS Saint-Denis La Plaine Cedex, FRANCE
Production Company 2	GROUEK Paris, FRANCE

Name	Company	Position
Sylvain Thirache	Sid Lee Paris	Executive Creative Director
Johan Delpuech	SID LEE Paris	Managing Partner
Jules Jolly	SID LEE Paris	Art Director/Copywriter
Yvan Archimbaud	Sid Lee Paris	Art Director/Copywriter
Thomas Laget	Sid Lee Paris	Head Of Production
David Bismut	SID LEE Paris	Digital Production Director
Pierre Boudin	Sid Lee Paris	Account Manager

The Campaign

We had to celebrate the French release of the video game Batman Arkham Origins. The game tells the story of the young Batman who just arrived in Gotham. The city is run by Black Mask and the Joker, who put a price on Batman's head and hire multiple assassins to get rid of him. We were strongly inspired by the game storyline, and decided to let the fans try their luck and pass interviews with the Joker to become the assassin who would have the privilege to kill the Bat. At the end, the selected candidate would sign a 2000 euros a month contract to play the game and track Batman down in the multiplayer mode. The fans had first to pass a quick online test. Selected profiles would then have the chance to actually talk to the Joker through Google Hangout interviews. We used sensor-less motion system capture that would reproduce the facial expressions of an actor, that we would map on the Joker in-game 3D model. The best candidates would then have a final interview with Black Mask, and one would sign the 2000-euro contract. The ultimate fantasy to talk to the Joker, in conjunction with the technology that we used naturally brought in video game journalists and influent bloggers to directly participate in the campaign and share their performance within their social audience.

The Brief

Our objective was to involve the video game influencers within the recruitment process and make sure they would take over the campaign message which was tightly connected to the product promise.

Results

For 8 hours a day, during a week, interviews took place on Google Hangouts and were streamed live on a YouTube player integrated within the campaign site. Each interview was published as a separate video on the campaign YouTube channel. At the end of the week, we had about 250 live interviews, 16 hours of footage, over 500.000 views, ten thousand comments and an impressive 10% share rate. As for all the candidates, bloggers interviews were streamed live. One of them got over 100,000 unique views.

Execution

During the first week, fans had to pass a multiple choice questionnaire that would define their personality as assassins. The 250 best profiles were selected to have an interview with the Joker through Google Hangouts, which happened from Monday to Friday of the second week. The 10 best candidates were then picked to get a final meeting with Black Mask, on a specific day of the third week. During the week of release of the game, we published a recap video featuring the whole operation.

The Situation

Video games local success depends on the noise generated by a bunch of very specific key influencers. Some of these influencers are geeks whose opinion written on their personal blogs matters more than critics in high-profile newspapers.

The Strategy

We first invited fans to participate to the live interview, and then sent their amazed reactions to the influencers, who immediately wanted to try the experience.