Watch Dogs - Lights Out

The Brief

Create the online ad campaign for Watch Dogs and include the games core feature, which centres on ‘hacking’ everyday environments via a mobile device. The focus should be on creating highly impactful, unique homepage takeovers which will appeal to new consumers as well as existing fans.

The Solution

With Watch Dogs Lights Out we really wanted to use the idea of ‘hacking’ with a mobile phone within the highly impactful homepage takeovers, and as such developed rich media units based on the night-time cityscape artwork from the game. The skyscrapers with their lights glowing in the darkness gave us the idea to turn the ‘lights out’ via the users mobile device.

We achieved this by using WebSockets technology, creating an interactive communication session between the user’s browser and a server, so browsers on different devices can respond to each other.

Users were prompted on the HPTO to go to a specific url on their mobile device and then input the unique code displayed, this then created the connection between their mobile device and the HPTO.

The mobile interface for Watch Dogs Lights Out was designed in the style of the mobile interface in-game, so a large, tempting looking button simply reading ‘Hack’ was the focus of the screen, and when pressed it triggered the lights on the desktop HPTO to flicker and turn off at the same time as the website itself. Once all lights were turned off we displayed a large, clear message and CTA including the game release date and the various platform pack shots.

At this point if the user pressed the button on their mobile again, it turned the lights back on in the site takeover.