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 inner grit, endurance and inner strength, to win a trip inspired by the game. The contestants, who made up billboard headline, faced blizzards, downpours, harsh wind and heat – all controlled by the public via a live stream.
Creative Execution
Survival Billboard was a single billboard that reached the world, as the action 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 reality show.
8 minutes average dwell time (vs. 8 seconds for a regular billboard)
£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 medium 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.
In addition, the contestants themselves were both the medium and the message, as the advertising headline was emblazoned across them. Survival Billboard was, in effect, a human billboard.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
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 experience that tapped into the gamer mentality of total control, and by doing so limit the amount of media expenditure whilst upping engagement levels. In essence, the strategic approach was to treat an ad for gamers as a game in itself.