2012 PRO Award Finalist: EA Sports, Gillette, Walmart, SonyPlaystation for EA Sports

EA Sports was looking for a way to grow its top selling Sports video game franchise Madden NFL. For the games August launch exclusively at Walmart, EA Sports partnered with Gillette for the Look & Play Like A Winner promotion. This was the third year of collaboration between Gillette, EA Sports and Walmart.

The promotion also highlighted a Madden NFL brand extensionMadden Ultimate Team where consumers were offered Madden Ultimate Team players and game strategy videos via a co-branding effort on 1.5 million Gillette products featured exclusively at Walmart. Print ads, banner ads, P-O-P and a TV spot were also utilized. All items drove traffic to a co-branded microsite where consumers could redeem the codes for coveted players, and unlock exclusive strategy videos. Every third code was a winner.

The primary goal of the promotion was to increase overall brand awareness of Madden NFL 12 by using additional outlets to promote the game. A secondary goal was to increase trial of Madden Ultimate Team.

Walmart hosted co-branded banner ads and created a Gillette landing page on its homepage. The banners linked to a trailer of the strategy videos and encouraged consumers to unlock more codes. A national TV spot was created with Walmart, Gillette and Sony PlayStation that prominently featured Madden NFL 12 and the Look & Play Like a Winner promotion during the August launch window.

Overall, the Look & Play Like a Winner promotion generated 600+ million impressions for the Madden NFL 12 brand. This awareness boosted first week sales of the game, which were up 9% over the previous year. Redemptions of Madden Ultimate Team codes increased 38% over a similar promotion from last year.