HOW WE DEPLOYED CAPTAIN PRICE TO CAMEO
Digital Campaign
A MISSION WORTHY OF BRAVO SIX:
195 HIGH VALUE TARGETS. 343 MILLION REACHED.
For decades, Captain John Price has been a Call of Duty legend, deploying to the most dangerous hotspots in the world.
Here's how we added Cameo to the list.
To promote Captain Price’s upcoming deployment into Call of Duty: Warzone, we dropped him onto Cameo to deliver custom messages to fans, celebrities, streamers, and influencers — all from Bravo Six himself.
Like any other military op, the objectives were clear:
- 1) Launch the first-ever virtual character on Cameo
- 2) Connect with fans on a personal level with custom-tailored a la carte videos
- 3) Forge a new COVID-safe remote production pipeline, including virtual pre-pro and shoot
It wasn’t easy, but Captain Price wouldn’t have it any other way.
Here’s how we pre-produced, scripted, and shot a motion picture’s worth of footage…remotely… during a pandemic… amidst city riots… over a holiday weekend… with zero crew, and no margin for error.
Client Activision Blizzard
Project Call of Duty: Warzone - Cameo
What We Did
- Cameo Campaign + Partnership
- Concept and Scripting
- Pre-Production (COVID-Safe Protocols)
- Remote Shoot (COVID-Safe Protocols)
- Post-Production (COVID-Safe Protocols)
- Launch Assets
- Sweepstakes
- Influencer and Streamer Seeding
PRICE DEPLOYS TO CAMEO
With the iconic Captain Price deploying to Call of Duty: Warzone, we approached Cameo to partner on another kind of deployment: the first-ever virtual character launch on their platform.
Up first: the call-to action.
PERSONALIZED MESSAGES FOR ALL
Fans were delighted to discover Captain Price on the platform, and soon, Bravo Six was conducting ops he'd never imagined:
Wedding proposals, military service announcements, birthday and graduation shoutouts, messages of support, father-daughter notes, and more. By campaign's end, we would write over 425+ scripts, each one customized to its recipient.
HIGH-PROFILE LAUNCH
We began with shock-and-awe. To activate the campaign, an initial wave of celebrities, athletes, and streamers received a completely unexpected drop of Price Cameos, distributed natively on each celebrity's channels.
Given each celebrity recipient was already a Call of Duty player, our scripts were individually crafted to maximize engagement and drive engagement with the brand by calling out talent's play-styles, tendencies, and in-game habits.
The campaign quickly gained steam, generating 6.6M+ earned views as dozens of streamers including TimTheTatMan and celebrities like Steve Aoki posted their Cameos, driving fans to go get one of their own.
A GOOD CAUSE
The first wave of Cameos sold for $141, an homage to Price's Task Force 141, with all proceeds supporting veterans via the Call of Duty Endowment. Orders were screened, approved, scripted and shot just days later. Alongside hero placement on the Cameo platform, earned press coverage from Polygon and The Verge drove awareness for the op.
A BLISTERING TIMELINE
While adhering to ever-changing union and governmental guidelines, we also needed to set up talent for success, as he'd be performing hundreds of scripts at a time. To turn fan requests into a final assets in mere days, we created a fully remote cross-discipline pipeline where scripts, cuts and composites could be rendered and reviewed in real-time by brand, studio, legal, and PR.
EMBRACING THE CAMEO CHAOS
With no precedent to follow, the Armed Mind team set out to build its own COVID playbook, including a completely virtual pre-pro and shoot that ran on pre-tested, incubated equipment. Not only was lighting, wardrobe, and make-up executed remotely, but a cloud-based prompter and camera allowed our virtual team to guide talent from his own home.
SUCCESS AMIDST CRISIS
A second wave of celebrity Cameos and a sweepstakes for non-purchasers was staggered out of respect for global circumstances and larger societal events. Once released, these custom Cameos connected with fans on a personal level, lightening an unprecedented time by providing a human, interpersonal connection to one of the franchise's most iconic characters.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Promoting his deployment to Call of Duty: Warzone, Captain Price’s drop onto Cameo delivered shock-and-awe as the very first launch of a virtual character on the immensely popular platform.
