Any brand that wants to cut through the noise and reach its audience today, has to adapt to where the audience currently is. For Björn Borg, that means 18-25 year olds, and knowingly, gaming is one of the most popular activities amongst them. As a welcomed diversion from the fashion norm, the idea of a gaming strategy was born. To follow Björn Borg´s mission to ”take an active stand for more love in the world”, we had to find common denominator. As the majority of games are about shooting each other, we decided to take on the gaming world´s violent nature and parody the first person shooter-genre. Players dress their model-like avatar in Björn Borg clothes before setting out to rid the world of haters. The game introduced a new platform for e-commerce; in-game shopping, along with a completely new game genre: the First Person Lover (not shooter!) game.
The Campaign
Our brief was to launch sports fashion brand Björn Borgs collection and reach their target group 18-25 year olds. Knowingly, gaming is one of the most popular activities amongst them. As a diversion from the fashion norm, the idea of First Person Lover was born. The game introduced a new platform for e-commerce; in-game shopping. We launched First Person Lover at Stockholm Fashion Week, with a fashion show inspired by the game. The models wore masks from the playable characters. Thanks to the innovative approach, it became the most talked about show during fashion week. The game was available at firstpersonlover.com where visitors could either play it in their browser or download it, follow a live leader board and view the collection. Post game launch, an outdoor campaign with our playable characters as fashion models was rolled out. We also showed a live global scoreboard on digital billboards.
Creative Execution
We launched First Person Lover on Stockholm Fashion Week with models wearing face masks as the playable characters of the game. We also released trailers from the game on Youtube, one of them spoofing Hatred – the most violent game ever made. On firstpersonlover.com visitors could play the game directly in their browsers or download it (PC and Mac) and view a real time global score board. The campaign continued with an outdoor fashion campaign made in 3d with the playable characters. The global high score board was also shown in real time on digital billboards on train stations.
During launch week, it was reviewed on Kotaku, one of the largest gaming sites – calling it ”one of the most fabulous things I’ve ever seen” – and featured in gamer PewDiePie’s (the world’s biggest Youtube account) videos, clocking up 4,5 million views. Playthroughs on Youtube has together generated more than 23 million views. Many gamers got passionate and fan/review videos have garnered over 15 million views on Youtube so far. The total earned reach is 44 million that in effect generated a 20% increase in consideration in the target group. The game has been covered in international media, such as CBS, The Washington Post and Der Spiegel. The business impact of the in-game shopping feature resulted in a 40% increase in sales on the Björn Borg webshop (YoY) and still today the game is the largest traffic driver after Google. And yes, Björn Borg increased their market share.