SILVER SNIPERS

TitleSILVER SNIPERS
BrandLENOVO SWEDEN
Product/ServiceLEGION
Category B07. Use of Events & Stunts
Entrant EHRENSTRAHLE DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation EHRENSTRAHLE DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN
PR EHRENSTRAHLE DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN
PR 2 TEXT 100 Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production LINK FILM Uppsala, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Markus Bjurman Ehrenstråhle Creative Director
Oskar Ferm Ehrenstråhle Art Director
Joakim Estemar Ehrenstråhle Copywriter
Sophia Meijer Ehrenstråhle Business Director
Jonna Peltonen Ehrenstråhle Production Manager
Anna Mattsson Ehrenstråhle Social Media Manager
Mia Kleist Ehrenstråhle Project manager
Sofia Rönnqvist Ehrenstråhle Final Art
Lisa Thunander Ehrenstråhle Final Art
Susanne Åström Ehrenstråhle Final Art
Lars "Kongo" Carlsson Ehrenstråhle Final Art
Linda Engström Ehrenstråhle Final Art
Linus Nilsson Linkfilm Cinematographer
Emma Nilsson Linkfilm Project manager
Johan Nordqvist Linkfilm Sound / Grading

Why is this work relevant for PR?

We saw an opportunity to reach right into the heart of the gaming community by entering our campaign vehicle at one of the biggest gaming events of the year, using it as a springboard for our campaign. Instantly it spread around the world, among the hardcore gaming fans and out into the general public only aided by a website and some social media posts.

Background

Situation: E-sport is the fastest growing sport in the world with 113 million fans worldwide / 147 million occasional viewers (2015). The competition between brands wanting to make an impression is fierce and the gamers themselves are a notoriously hard to reach audience. Brief / Challenge: Lenovo wanted to promote their brand and line of gaming computer hardware ‘Legion’ to this audience. The budget was limited (Approx $20, 000 in total), which immediately cancelled out any major production and ATL media campaign. It also challenged our use of bigger names within influencers among the gaming industry, which could have helped us. Another challenge was to find the best way of reaching the gamers on our market, when most of them consume media on a global scale.

Describe the creative idea

When looking at e-sports, we found that it as a culture attracts mainly young men (10:1 ratio 2018), both playing and following, excluding not only women, but also older people. The elderly are also seen as the digital underclass. We found that doing something different could really be about challenging the norms of the actual players taking part. Because gaming really isn’t about physical status or about who you are or where you’re from. Anyone should be able to take part. As a result, we created the world’s first senior CS:GO team – The Silver Snipers.

Describe the strategy

Target Audience: Young gamers and fans on our market. PR planning & approach: As our audience consume game-related news on a global scale rather than local, we had to re-imagine the tools on how to reach them, be effective, stand out and mind the budget. We chose to launch our team on a website and enter ´different´ in shape of an actual living pro-team of elderly into a real live event where the world is watching. A combination of digital, social and real live event.

Describe the execution

In November 2017 we embodied ´different´ in the shape of a never before seen Counter Strike team of elderly men and women, between 63 and 81 years of age on our website. After two weeks of training (shared on social media) we hi-jacked Dreamhack, one of gaming’s biggest events of the year and entered our ´Silver Snipers´ to take on the international pro-teams. A very different and lovable team entered at the center stage of a hard-to-reach scene, a website and a few social posts causing a stir in 157 countries, appearing on over 400 news sites, even reaching national TV in China.

List the results

- People from 157 different countries visited the Silver Snipers website - 144 000 upvotes on Reddit - 116 million in total reach - Social Media Engagement target: 100.000 - Social Media Engagement result: 679.911 - 434 780 views on Imgur - News coverage from 700+ articles