The Nosulus Rift is a device specifically created to enhance the South Park: TFBW experience during gaming conventions. To develop the Nosulus Rift, we’ve collaborated with a team composed of hardware and software engineers, designers and perfume specialists. By inserting an inaudible soundwave (that only the mask can detect) in the fart sound FX of the game, the Nosulus knows when to trigger the smell. Thus, whenever the player activates the New Kid’s fart in the game, he triggers the fart smell in the device. From a design perspective, we were inspired by all the VR trends and our main concern was to create an ergonomic and comfortable product in order to immerse the players in the game. Regarding the odor, we were able, after 25 attempts, to create the “universal fart” smell. Finally, we’ve had the agreement of Oculus regarding the naming
Creative Execution
The first step was the creation of a proof of concept. Afterwards, we’ve built the Nosulus Rift as a product that could be sold : all materials used (plastic, aluminium and plexiglas) are in compliance with EU regulations and industry standards. To date, there are 25 Nosulus around the world that were built in less than two months. All the masks were made in France.
These devices are available for testing during several gaming conventions around the world. It all started in August during Gamescom which is the biggest convention in Europe (350,000 visitors). After, the Nosulus was in Seattle for the PAX West fair (approx. 70,000 visitors) and in Birmingham for EGX (approx. 75,000 visitors). The journey of the Nosulus will last until the launch of the video game which has been postponed to end of Q1 2017. Next step is the Paris Games Week (approx. 300,000 visitors).
The Nosulus Rift campaign is a massive success. Indeed, over 10,000 people have tested the device worldwide. But the number of people who have heard about the Nosulus is much higher. Here are the key figures :
- Almost 6M people have seen the commercial
- Between the launch of the commercial and the end of Gamescom, almost 500,000 people have visited nosulusrift.com
- The PR media coverage was amazing: in total, 693 articles coming from 59 countries talked about the campaign. Among them, 60 were edited on major media brands : BBC, TF1, Mashable, Vice, IGN, The Independent, Die Zeit, …
- Several YouTube celebrities such as PewDiePie posted a video using the Nosulus. Brought together, these videos were seen by over 10M people
- There has been 17k tweets with a potential reach of 117,12M people
But what’s most impressive is that there wasn’t any media buy !
South Park is not a brand, it’s a myth of pop culture. There are 19 seasons of pure creative brillance ! Therefore, working on such a subject implies creating content that becomes part of pop culture itself.
The Nosulus Rift is the first virtual fart simulator. It takes virtual reality to a whole new level by allowing players to enjoy South Park : The Fractured But Whole in the most immersive way possible. By creating for real such a product, we’ve definitely created an idea true to the spirit of the show.
Our objective was to target a broader audience than just the South Park fans. This meant targetting all kinds of gamers, video games fans and geeks who go to gaming conventions in order to test all the new games before their release. Therefore, it was obvious that the Nosulus Rift had to be available on the Ubisoft booth at all the gaming conventions prior to the game’s launch. The Nosulus Rift was first available for testing at Gamescom. In order to let people know about this event, we’ve launched a commercial of the Nosulus a few days before the opening of Gamescom. This ad went viral in a few hours and the #Nosulus spread quickly. Therfore, loads of people came to test the Nosulus and talked about it in social media. After this first success, the Nosulus Rift travelled from one convention to another always meeting with great success.