On June 14th 2012, The Sims FreePlay kicked off a teaser campaign for Update 4, the “Social Update.” A PN was sent out to users prompting them to get a “sneak peek” of the newest update. It was accompanied by In-App Notifications that informed users that the update was “socially inspiring” and a full-page interstitial that asked, “What’s Next for Your Sims?”, and directed people to Facebook to find out.
In concert with a senior designer, we built a LOL Cat-inspired social campaign around the feline friends. What was really cool about this campaign was that it was, in a sense, an in-world advertising campaign. Instead of targeting “humans” playing the Sims Freeplay, we spoke to people as if they were Sims — keeping the consumer benefits and humor Sim-centric.
I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the reason Philip K. Dick wrote about advertising in the future or Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme,” but this Sim cat meme campaign was a hell of a lot of fun to conceptualize and write.
The Sim cat social campaign began June 25th, with a Facebook post that contained a third trailer that focused entirely on the feline friends and a second post that contained a Sim cat meme. The post encouraged users to re-caption the meme, offering, in turn, to create a new meme based on the best fan-written caption. This tactic really encouraged fans to created a ton of user-generated content.
Here’s the trailer (which I had the good fortune to write and “rewrite” in the edit bay):
GOAL: Show an overview of the new cats available in the new Social Update for Sims FreePlay and drive views to the Sims FreePlay Facebook page to participate in our LolCats Campaign.
SOLUTION: Posted video to EA Mobile YouTube, Sims FreePlay FaceBook page as well as the EA Mobile FaceBook page.
RESULTS: The video generated over 9,000 views to date. Facebook post generated 549 likes, 584 comments and 23 shares.
CREATIVE TEAM: Shanon Ingles, Geoff Mosher, and Nicolas Ignacio
Shanon M. Ingles 