Watch_Dogs Live для Ubisoft

The app that turns your mobile phone into a hacker device

2015 Webby Award Winner

Winner in nominations:
- «Advertising & Media»
- «Mobile Campaigns»
44th CMA Awards

Gold in nominations:
- «Top Honour»
- «Advertising»
- «Community Engagement (PR and Social Media)»
- «Digital»
- «Direct Engagement»
- «Experiential and Innovative Media»
- «Integrated»
Boomerang 2014

Grand Prize in nominations:
- «Overall»
- «Acquisition strategy and loyalty»
- «Online campaign (supported by media buy)»
- «Integrated campaign (online + offline, supported by media buy)»
- «Site or application product / promotional»
- «Experiential site or application»
- «Site or gaming application»

Watch_Dogs Live — is a game mobile app that allows hack and occupy the objects of the real world such as ATMs, petrol and police stations. The project won three prestigious awards in several categories!

Intro

In 2014 Canadian company Ubisoft Montreal released a world famous multiplatformed computer game Watch Dogs where the main character used his mobile to hack different systems and electronic devices.

To whet the audience’s appetite before the release a promo-campaign was launched and the mobile apps for IPhone and Android were developed.

Project task

To create a mobile live-version of the future game which let the gamers put themselves on the place of the main character and use their mobile devices to hack different objects. The client: Circus Intersection for Publicis Canada.

The plot of the game

According to the plot the gamers should drive one dishonest magnate to bankruptcy, steal all his savings and give them all away to the poor. Every day the gamers got a code which they hacked and received what they needed.

The game straddles real and imagined worlds. The app is built on the geo-social mechanics. The users hack and occupy more than one thousands of real locations in Canada: airports, police stations, night clubs, ATMS and so on.

It gives an opportunity to collect the points, to level up the skills, to take away the objects from each other and compete for the grade of the brightest hacker in Canada. The most active gamers got valuable prizes every week.

Main application screen, location map and hacking skills

The peculiarity of the game

All cracks are done virtually. But Ubisoft decided to add something special increasing the scale and virtuality of the action.

Every month the users received some «secret missions» that offered a crack of a real ATM with thousands of dollars, an explosion of a real car and a take of a live broadcast of the famous sport show or a hijacking of a secret cargo container. Anyone who wished could take part in these missions.

The video records have become popular and have been approved by the audience.

Campaign results

Unprecedented number of the gamers involved — 80% of those who downloaded the app became active gamers.
Top-5 AppStore Canada.
More than 200 000 of installs.
More than 500 000 views on YouTube.
8 700 000 «hacker attacks».
More than 480 000 free media impressions.

Resume

This game mobile app let the Ubisoft Company carry out a successful ad campaign that influenced the future demand on the computer game.

Due to the end of the promo campaign the Watch_Dogs Live app was deleted from AppStore и Google Play, but the history of success is still on the website of Webby Awards.

Awards

2015 Webby Award Winner

Winner in nominations:
- Advertising & Media
- Mobile Campaigns
44th CMA Awards

Gold in nominations:
- Top Honour
- Advertising
- Community Engagement (PR and Social Media)
- Digital
- Direct Engagement
- Experiential and Innovative Media
- Integrated
Boomerang 2014

Grand Prize in nominations:
- Overall
- Acquisition strategy and loyalty
- Online campaign (supported by media buy)
- Integrated campaign (online + offline, supported by media buy)
- Site or application product / promotional
- Experiential site or application
- Site or gaming application