THE CHALLENGE

UKTV’s channel Watch wanted to build awareness and excitement for Primeval’s exclusive premiere. The target audience was hardcore fans and occasional enthusiasts.

THE SOLUTION

We wanted to blur the boundaries between TV, gaming and 3D interaction through a YouTube takeover experience. Clicking through to the URL, the viewer sees a standard YouTube page playing a Primeval promo.

Almost immediately, vicious raptors tear at the screen to try and break through. One of the show’s stars then throws a gun to the viewer, who can slow down the destruction only by shooting the raptors. The takeover includes sophisticated game logic, so the user has different types of ammunition to ramp up points, together with incentives for shareability and replay value, such as cheat codes for more time, bullets or health. On the day of launch, we had a homepage takeover banner on YouTube.com. A parallel Facebook campaign revealed exclusive daily unlocks, with the takeover being the final unlock to get fans buzzing with excitement about the new series on Watch.

THE RESULT

In the first few days of launch, over 40,000 people played the game and it was one of the most-watched YouTube videos in the UK on launch day. The number of players has now exceeded 90,000.

Over 750,000 people watched the first episode of series 5 - almost triple the usual viewing figures. In July 2011, the work was awarded YouTube ad of the week by Campaign magazine, FWA site of the day (a very prestigious award in the industry) and IAB Bronze.