Golden Joysticks PR agency

Gamer James Richards setting a new World Record at the Golden Joystick Awards 2009

Campaign: Golden Joysticks PR campaign 2009

Client: Future UK

Objectives: Achieve 1 million consumer votes for awards, Partner with Future’s in-house resource to increase awareness of awards among consumers and industry and drive Golden Joysticks PR coverage

Strategy & plan: The Golden Joysticks PR plan was developed as a three-stage campaign for this audience-voted videogames awards event. The first stage was to engage the industry, then motivate videogame communities and finally alert the mainstream audience. The key challenge was to project coverage outside the games specialist media for this historically trade-facing event.

Key to the campaign’s success was the partnership of video games industry stakeholders – especially those with nominations in the awards. Boom! created an awards roadshow and visited the nominated companies to showcase the Awards , providing them with event information and a voting toolkit, designed to assist those who wished to activate their communities in the voting process.

The consumer motivation element of the campaign kicked off with a viral creative. The ‘Great Games Search’ was designed to generate interest and talkability. A complex picture containing visual clues to multiple hidden videogames images was quickly shared around gamers with a ‘Vote now’ call to action. This was supported with a competition mechanic designed to reward the consumers who could identify the most games.

To widen coverage outside the games community, the Boom! team negotiated a number of partnerships with consumer media titles including ShortList, Bliss and MSN in addition to Future’s own GamesRadar, CVG.co.uk and Edge. These partnerships delivered exclusive pre-event feature coverage and were used to drive awareness and voting.

To further strengthen the mainstream news potential of the event, Boom! and Future staged a world record attempt together with event sponsors Lucozade on the morning of the Golden Joystick Awards. The ‘Lucozade Alert Plus Super Sonic Challenge’ saw 21 year old Maidstone gamer James Richards set a new Guinness World Record for completing a level of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 22 seconds. Guinness World Record adjudicators and spokespeople were on hand to confirm the record time and Richards was presented with a Guinness World Record certificate as part of the ceremony later that day.

It was important to the campaign to leverage the massive online specialist videogames community. Boom! & Future devised and implemented a blogger outreach programme tailored to supply the needs of the UK’s most influential gaming blogs. This included a dedicated Digital Media Room at the awards event, with key bloggers invited to the show for the first time. A full media schedule for the day was developed for the bloggers which also featured a Q&A session with Future’s key games publishing executives and editors to discuss how to develop a career in games journalism. Exclusive demonstrations by the makers of new blockbuster games titles such as DJ Hero and Tekken 6 were also laid on, giving the bloggers previously unattainable access to games talent.

The climax of the campaign was the Golden Joystick Awards ceremony itself. Media management at the event focused on a backstage media run where mainstream media were provided with opportunities to interview key winners and industry figures. Media attendees included Radio One, Radio Five Live, ITN, XFM, The Guardian and The Sun.

The awards event also featured the presentation of the second Guinness World Record of the day – this time to the Golden Joystick Awards itself, which was recognised as the ‘Worlds Most Popular Video games Awards’ in front of the audience of over 800 industry executives.

Measurement & evaluation

The campaign exceeded the target of 1 million votes by finally reaching 1,223,646 – the biggest haul of votes in the event’s 27 year history.

The campaign generated over 30 pieces of mainstream lifestyle and news print and online coverage, over 50 pieces of specialist & trade media coverage and over 100 specialist games blogs.

Key pieces included The Times, Radio 5Live, BBC Radio One, ITN and CBBC Newsround.

Results

47% increase in voting, beating previous highest voting total by 367,384 votes, highlighting a huge leap in industry engagement and consumer participation.

Significant increase in both pre- and post-event coverage over previous years.

Event recognised as world’s leading video games awards ceremony.

Client quote

“Working with Boom! took the Golden Joystick Awards to a new level. The company’s tenacity and professionalism enabled us to easily reach our target of 1 million votes from the general public, securing our place as the world’s premier public-facing videogames event. Boom! took time to understand the obstacles faced by the awards and provided swift, tailored solutions. I’m looking forward to a long association with Justin Crosby and his team, and already planning our joint campaign for next year’s event.” Emma Parkinson, Publisher Future UK