Title	PLAY THE GAME OR PLAY FOR REAL
Brand	IRISH DEFENCE FORCES
Product/Service	RECRUITMENT
Category	A10. Public Sector
Entrant	ROTHCO | ACCENTURE INTERACTIVE Dublin, IRELAND
Idea Creation	ROTHCO | ACCENTURE INTERACTIVE Dublin, IRELAND

Name	Company	Position
Alan Kelly	Rothco	Executive Creative Director
Jonathon Cullen	Rothco	Creative Director
Jonathon Cullen	Rothco	Creative Director
Frances O’Rourke	Rothco	Copywriter
Katie Oslizlok	Rothco	Account Director
Aoife O’Shea	Rothco	Account Manager
Sarah Walsh	Rothco	Strategy
Emer Fitzpatrick	Rothco	Connection Strategy
Catherine Shaw-Halford	Rothco	Connection Strategy
Karina Cotter	Rothco	Agency Producer
Margaret Levingstone	Rothco	Agency Producer
Darach McHugh	Rothco	Motion Graphics
Stephen Flynn	Rothco	UI Design
Daire Lennon	Rothco	Technical Director
Brian O'Malley	Red Rage	Director
Gary Moore	Red Rage	Producer
Phillip Cullen	Windmill Lane	Editor
Dave Hughes	Windmill Lane	Colourist
Mark Richards	Mutiny	Sound Studio
Windmill Lane Pictures	Windmill Lane Pictures	Post Production
Mutiny	Mutiny	Sound Studio
Laura Cahill	Rothco	Agency Producer
Paul Power	Rothco	Multi Media Producer
Gareth Nolan	Rothco	Editor

The Campaign

We used a fake game “A New Dawn” as a Trojan horse to ambush our audience and get them to consider a career in the Irish Defence Forces. We knew our audience were gamers, so we teased the launch of “A New Dawn”. Tipped to be “the most realistic FPS game yet”, it received widespread attention as gaming aficionados attempted to establish its origins. Within five days the trailer had 500,000 views. The “game” turned up in gaming stores, on digital outdoor and at gamer conventions, adding to the buzz around the launch. Viewers were invited to “Play The Game or Play For Real”, and directed to anewdawn.ie. However on the launch date, players discovered this was no game, this was an interactive video of a real military mission seen through the eyes of a real soldier. Their chance to experience the reality of the Defence Forces and ‘Join Our Team’.

Campaign Success

Timeline: 1 week teaser stage followed by 3 week campaign. We created a 20” unbranded trailer for the game launch which received 500,000 views within the first five days on social media and was also played on screens in busy shopping centres around Ireland. We turned the key visual into posters and game boxes (containing a DVD of the trailer). We took over window displays in gaming stores as well as getting the game boxes onto their shelves. The animated key visual ran on Orb Screens in over 70 locations. Brand Ambassadors hijacked GamerCon (24,000 attendees) and distributed the game boxes. Game boxes were also left on public transport nationwide and sent to radio hosts. We placed life size cardboard cutouts in stores and cinemas where the trailer was screened. We used programmatic social posts to retarget our audience. The campaign was also picked up by RTE News and influencers.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Within just 4 weeks… We got a record breaking 5,000 applications, marking the end of a 4 year downward trend. The campaign reached 1 million views in a population of just 4.5 million. Total conversion rate from game to sign-up was 16% - this is 620% higher than the industry average. Visitors to the site were heavily engaged, staying for approx. 3 minutes and visiting on average 3 pages. Visits to the Defence Forces website rose by 88% during the campaign - 61% of visitors were from organic search. It made national and international news, picked up by RTE, Huffington Post, the Independent, Ad World, The Stable, The Drum and The Sun among others.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

To reach an elusive generation who were already switched off to our message, we knew we’d have to be stealthy. So we infiltrated their world using a fake game as a Trojan Horse, popping up in all of the places you’d expect to find a real game. We created just enough intrigue that they couldn’t resist following our trail, at the same time spreading our message like wildfire. The trail led all the way to our interactive video, which placed them in the boots of a real soldier, bringing the reality of a career in the Defence Forces to life.

18-24 year olds are notoriously hard to reach. But for the Defence Forces they are even harder to engage. Considering only 29% would recommend the Defence Forces as a career to friends/family, it’s of no surprise that 73% of them have never even considered joining themselves. Getting them to pay attention to a recruitment drive would prove difficult. But we knew that the reality of a career in the Defence Forces would appeal to many within the target audience, if they’d only take a closer look. We uncovered that Irish 18-24 year olds spend on average 20 hours per week gaming. So we used this as a familiar vessel to enter their world and place them into the boots of a real soldier. However, considering their indifference towards the Defence Forces, we knew it wouldn’t be easy getting them to play the game. So we tricked them into it!