Title	CHICHARRON RUN
Brand	UBISOFT
Product/Service	FAR CRY 6
Category	A01. Fiction & Non-Fiction Films up to 5 minutes
Entrant	DDB Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation	DDB Paris, FRANCE
Production	STINK STUDIOS Paris, FRANCE
Production 2	IMPORTANT LOOKING PIRATES Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production 3	MACHINE SOUND LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Alexander Kalchev	DDB Paris	Chief Creative Officer
Clara NOGUIER	DDB Paris	Art Director
Olivier LE LOSTEC	DDB Paris	Copywriter
Vincent Léorat	DDB Paris	Agency Supervisor
Mathieu BLIGUET	DDB Paris	Agency Supervisor
Tanguy MORTREUIL	DDB Paris	Agency Supervisor
Lena LIEUVIN	DDB Paris	Agency Supervisor
Arnaud TEXEREAU	DDB Paris	Agency Supervisor
Sébastien GENTY	DDB Paris	Planner
Corinne PERSCH	DDB Paris	Agency Producer
Gaëlle DE-POMPIGNAN	DDB Paris	Agency Producer
Gaëlle DE-POMPIGNAN	DDB Paris	Agency Producer
Geoffroy SARDIN	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Lionel Hiller	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Édouard D’ALNOIS	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Julia CHOURGNOZ-VILLANO	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Maxime GUERLUS	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Baptiste RAMBAUD	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Louis RAYNAUD	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Arnault LE MAISTRE	Ubisoft	Advertiser Supervisor
Greg PANTEIX	Stink	Producer
Traktor -	Stink	Director
Cédric Boit	DDB Paris	Composer
Clément Reynaud	DDB Paris	Composer
Marine Cremer	DDB Paris	Music Supervisor
Mr Viktor -	-	Composer

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

Chicharron Run is a 100 seconds film that was made to launch the new Far Cry 6. The license is known for being one the funniest and craziest amongs the Ubisoft games. And because the audience for this kind of launch is always awaiting for pieces of content that transcent them, while writing and producing, we were driven by making it the more entertaining possible. At the end, the amount of positive comments the film received at its launch showed us we have succeed to entertain them.

Background

Far Cry is one of Ubisoft licenses known for being loved by a lot of gamers. The basics of the storyline is mainly the same but it’s originality comes from it’s incredible environment and complexed characters that are crazier and crazier at each release. For the 6th volume, the game sets in Yara, a tropical island stuck in time where a dictature takes place. Anton Castillo, embodied by Giancarlo Esposito, is the man pressuring the city of Esperanza and harassing it’s civilians. Slowly, a guerilla is rising, lead by the main hero Dani, to fight back against the regime. For the launch of this film, the objectives was to bring back the fun and entertainement that’s part of Far Cry’s DNA. We needed to feel the heat, the sweat, the dust and excitement of this new world waiting to be played.

Describe the creative idea

For this film, we asked ourselves: How could we show a rebellion rising, in the most unexpected way? So we digged in Far Cry 6 universe and discovered Chicharrón : A rooster that can help you in the game to defeat the dictator. And that’s how we found our unexpected. Chicharron will be the spark that will build up our rebellion. But because it’s a rooster, it will obviously not made on purpose. We wanted to create its story with everything going out of control very quickly to show that the course of a story can change in seconds. Our inspiration came from City of Gods intro, where a chicken try to escape his fate and runs across the favelas chased by everyone. The scene is so rich and gives so much to the film environment that we wanted people to feel the same while watching our trailer.

Describe the strategy

After the great success of Far Cry 5, the 4th best rated game in 2018 and a ubisoft’s best-selling game of this generation, the franchise was still not unique and it remained a huge challenge on the brand perception. We faced a strong target challenge, a feeling of “déjà vu” and not surprising enough risk. With this in mind, our strategy was to make Far Cry 6 unpredictable again. From our strategy method, crossing a brand & product anchor x a cultural momentum x category drivers, we defined a strong emotional advantage : “there’s nothing like improvising” with this idea of breaking conventions and be where we’re not expected, across a feeling of freedom & irreverence contributing to Far Cry uniqueness. Lever 2, we built on a twisted, fun a fresh tone of voice, to make this new Far Cry so unique and memorable.

Describe the execution

We worked hand in hand with Ubisoft to deploy the Far Cry 6 campaign through several keys moments: The first one was few months before the launch with social content to communicate on a very specific gameplay aspect and open preorders. The second one was Chicharrón Run, our film, released in September 28th 2021, few days before the launch of the game to create a climax and finish to convince people who haven't bought it yet. After delivering our final copy to Ubisoft EMEA that was in charge to send it to all Ubisoft’s markets, the film was adapted in various countries in the world for TV, Cinemas and Online.

Describe the outcome

The "Chicharrón Run" film is the centerpiece of the 360° campaign for Far Cry® 6, and has been broadcast in 26 countries: on TV, cinema, digital and social media (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch). In terms of engagement and impact, this launch film has been really well received by the gamers. In particular, we have seen a very strong performance in terms of engagement, with a VTR75 at +9% above Ubisoft's benchmarks in a very competitive period. Thanks to the trailer, it generated +6% of purchase intent on Youtube, which is twice as much as the usual Ubisoft benchmarks. On Youtube, the film also received a really high positive rating (almost 30K likes for about 1K dislikes in total), along with many very positive comments: several thousands spontaneous comments from the audience, mostly paying tribute to the stunning performance and quality of this trailer.