McCann London

Client: Xbox / Microsoft
Product: Xbox One X Enhanced
Title: The Birth of Gaming Tourism
Media: multimedia
Country: global
Date Of Campaign: 30/01/2020

Background: Videogame marketing has always focused on characters and weapons. How could Xbox attract a wider audience who didn’t care about the violence?

Idea: We created a new reason to buy games. Not to play. To visit. Because games have become so vast and lifelike, they can be sold as destinations. Xbox transformed into a travel brand, for the first time promoting not gameplay, but games as tourist destinations. It was all built around a groundbreaking partnership with global travel guide publisher Rough Guides, which worked just like their guides to countries, but with all the advice entirely for virtual worlds. Launched at the UK’s largest travel expo, the idea changed how people experience games, and the shift was amplified on everything from tourist board-style ads to in-game guided tours to selling console bundles as package holidays. It was not just a new lens on gaming, but a new lens on travel.

Results: - Debuted in 29 countries and counting- 4x average response rate- 55% traffic increase- 67% above average engagement rate