Verizon x Xbox: The NPCs Are Alive
The livestream that sold out Madison Square Garden*
2x Shorty Awards 2023
🥇Winner | Live Video
🥈Silver | Other Platform
1x Webby Awards 2023
🏅Honoree | Best Community Engagement
1x Campaign US BIG Awards
🥈Silver | Tech Vertical
As the first official telco brand to sell Xbox in store, Verizon needed to prove to gamers it was up to the task.
That meant not just selling consoles, but proving that we were gamers too. That we knew the ins and outs of gaming. That we weren’t just selling to this community, but an integral part of it. Because gaming isn’t just something you do. It’s something you live and breathe.
That meant going deep. Going niche.
Going NPC.
We designed a full-funnel, 360 campaign featuring the unsung heroes of games: the non-playable characters (NPCs) who guide you on your quest.
In this first-of-its-kind activation, we partnered with world-famous streamers AverageJonas and DrLupo to “play” a game in real time on Twitch, with the Twitch chat voting to choose his actions. We built a multi-room experience for AverageJonas to navigate that took cues from famous games like Forza Horizon 5 and Minecraft, with NPCs to guide him along the way to the ultimate prize: Xbox All Access, available through Verizon.
We brought NPCs to the mainstream with a :30 commercial leading gamers to their destiny.
We kept the activation going with a real-life NPC, giving out XBox-related prizes at Verizon stores in Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
If you’re so inclined, you can watch the full, award-winning stream, Twitch chat and all, right here.
How’d we do?
600,000+ viewers
38,000+ engagements
27,000 peak concurrent viewers
20,000+ average concurrent viewers (*-more than the capacity of Madison Square Garden)
Many, many, many Xboxes sold at Verizon
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