Dave Smith CEO, Mediasmith, Inc.

The Brand: Xbox 2
The Campaign: Halo 2 Launch
The Agency: AKQA

"The best media effort this year was a consumer-generated media plan driven by AKQA for Halo 2. According to AKQA, they had neither the time or the budget to create websites in all of the languages that the game was going to be released in. Their rather unique solution was to create an original language for Halo 2 and put up a website in that language. Within a very short period of time, people all over the world had decoded the language and generated their own websites in dozens of languages. It's the best example of CGM I have seen to date."

Campaign Insight

According to the agency, the client, Xbox 2, came to them "for a global viral marketing push to make the release of Halo 2 the entertainment event of the year."

AKQA created the website with content written in Covenant, the language of the relentless alien forces in Halo 2 -- developed in-house by AKQA. The site, http://www.halo2.com/, launched in October 2004. Phase 2 added screen savers, background animation, video sections and a send-to-a-friend feature.

According to the agency, by the time the game reached the retail shelves in November, pre-orders had surpassed $125 million-- ensuring first-day revenues higher than any movie in history.

Author Notes:
David L. Smith is CEO of Mediasmith, Inc. in San Francisco. As a 40-year veteran in the advertising media management arena, Smith wears many hats at Mediasmith. This includes hands-on with client strategy, first-hand involvement in the next great thing in media research, a passion for applying the next technology that "really makes a difference" and personal communications with clients and future clients. A nationally known expert in the areas of new media application, media strategy, media planning and metrics, Smith has held media management positions on both coasts. Trained in the major agency media department environment, he has been in the independent media service field since 1978 when he founded Mediasmith, generally regarded as the first media service in the nation to provide consulting services as well as full service media management and planning in addition to media buying.