A “Choose Your Own Adventure” experience that educates and gathers leads.
This was a lot of work.
Sixty minutes of story with over 80 combinations of decisions leading to 4 endings. We were asked to create a “choose your own adventure” video to engage mid and upper-level IT security management. Working closely with the Trend Micro team, we developed a story about the head of IT security at a large hospital. Of course, on his first day of work, all hell breaks loose.
One of the main objectives was to give professionals a broader perspective on the decision-making process in IT security.
We wanted to help them understand the importance of relations between employees, the relationships between IT staff and “civilians”, the pros and cons of specific tools, and their impact on the budget and logistics of the organization.
After completing the film, players received a debriefing from the narrator. We showed how their decisions influenced the security of the organization and the actions of their colleagues.
Sure, we could have developed a game in which the right choice had the client’s name or their product in it.
But that would have been too easy :) We wanted to make the player feel the weight of each decision….sweat a little.
Working closely with Trend Micro we created an authentic IT security experience where each decision you make, impacts the story, relations with other characters, and future choices.
We introduced a cost variable, and the player had to manage the budget and make sound, technical decisions. It was possible that if you’ve made a wrong decision early on, you wouldn’t have the option to make the right one later.
You’d be out of money.
Juggling so many variables meant that we had to develop our proprietary engine to create connections and then compile the entire video easily. We had a lot of help from our good developer friends at CANEXPLODE.
Our Creative Director is an old gamer, so he had a lot of fun with designing the interactions.In the end, we created a 15-minute experience that was built out of around 60 minutes of material.The story consists of over 80 unique paths, in which the interaction of technical, interpersonal, and budgetary decisions lead to 4 various endings. One good and 3 variations of bad.
We do our best to make each of our projects engage with the viewer on an emotional level… but this one hit the jackpot.
Our determination and burning the midnight oil with the Trend Micro team lead us to create an authentic experience for the targeted professionals. As it turned out, they enjoyed replaying the film to see how their decisions changed the outcome.
As a cherry on top, "Data Center Attack: The Game" won gold at both Cannes Corporate Media & TV Festival and The Telly Awards for best interactive video in 2018 and best B2B: Branded Content.
It also took home awards for writing and direction.
So, yeah... it looks like we did pretty well ;)
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