Title	SURVIVAL BILLBOARD
Brand	MICROSOFT
Product/Service	XBOX / TOMB RAIDER
Category	A17. Innovation in Entertainment
Entrant	McCANN LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	McCANN LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Placement	EMT/DENTSU AEGIS London, UNITED KINGDOM
PR	EDELMAN London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	MOMENTUM WORLDWIDE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company	MRM METEORITE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company 2	HOTHOUSE IWG London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company 3	ATTENTION SEEKERS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Additional Company 4	CRAFT WORLDWIDE London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Rob Doubal	McCann London	Co-President & Chief Creative Officer
Laurence Thomson	McCann London	Co-President & Chief Creative Officer
Sanjiv Mistry	McCann London	EMEA Creative Director
Jamie Mietz	McCann London	EMEA Creative Director
Chad Warner	McCann London	Integrated Creative Director
Jim Nilsson	McCann London	Creative
Jacob Björdal	McCann London	Creative
Anja McGuiness	McCann London	Associate Legal Counsel
Sergio Lopez	McCann London	Head of Integrated Production
Michael Thomason	McCann London	Head of Art
Colin Lee	McCann London	Digital Designer
Danny Elliot	McCann London	Designer
Thomas Keane	McCann London	Planner
Clare Mann	McCann London	Senior Project Manager
Lois Newcombe	McCann/Craft	Producer
Chris Cartwright	McCann London	Senior TV Producer
Tom McLoughlin	McCann/Craft	Executive Producer
Sailesh Jani	McCann London	Business Director
AJ Coyne	McCann London	Account Director
Tom Oliver	McCann London	Account Manager
Charlotte Walters	McCann London	Account Executive
Ellis Faint	McCann/Craft	Studio Manager
Liam White	McCann/Craft	Print Producer
Andy Tusabe	McCann/Craft	Editor
Paul Jenkinson	McCann/Craft	Editor
Tim Sutton	McCann/Craft	Sound Engineer
Chris Gilbert	McCann/Craft	Sound Engineer
Robert Freeman	McCann/Craft	Artworker
Muhammad Qasim	McCann/Craft	Artworker
Ellis Faint	McCann/Craft	Studio Manager

The Campaign

Xbox turned an advertising channel into an entertainment channel. Survival Billboard was a billboard in central London on which eight gamers stood in a test of Lara Croft-like grit, endurance and inner strength, to win a trip inspired by the game. The contestants faced blizzards, downpours, harsh wind and intense heat – all controlled by the public via a live stream.

Creative Execution

Survival Billboard was a single billboard that reached the world, as the drama taking place on it was live streamed on Twitch, the Xbox dashboard, banner ads, digital OOH and a dedicated microsite. The public gave up on sleep to watch the billboard, to control the weather that the participants were enduring, as well as to support, discuss and speculate about alliances and romances. The winner lasted 22 grueling hours, yet In that one day, the oldest advertising medium was reinvented as a gripping, interactive reality show.

8 minutes average dwell time (vs. 8 seconds for a regular billboard) 1000 weather votes per hour £3.8 million in earned media 11000 viewers for 22 hours straight 3.5 million views 32000 comments in 22 hours

Survival Billboard reinvented the oldest advertising channel as an entertainment channel. By using an existing medium in an entirely unexpected way (turning it into a gripping, interactive reality show), it challenged the norm of what billboards can do, in terms of engagement, entertainment value and expected results. To its audience, Survival Billboard was more than a piece of advertising. It was a highly watchable spectacle that kept them up all night both glued to the drama as well as influencing it.

The aim was to target gamers who were otherwise distracted by the imminent launch of bigger games with bigger budgets, such as Fallout 4 and Star Wars Battlefront. Our approach was to create a single, interactive entertainment experience that tapped into the gamer mentality of total control, and by doing so upped the engagement levels. In essence, the strategic approach was to treat an ad for gamers as an entertaining game in itself.