Xbox needed to reach the people who didn’t like Halo, or didn’t care about Halo, or had never heard of Halo.

And get them to buy a copy. If we were going to do this, the conventions of the category were irrelevant - loud explosions, pounding music, gameplay footage, guns, blood and gore would merely reinforce the perceptions people had of Halo.

We needed to rewrite the rules of a video game campaign and show more of the characteristics of the movies we wished to compete against.

1. We sought to embrace the Halo Nation’s love of all things Halo, & understand why they had such passion for this franchise.

2. We interrogated this passion to see if it could be spread to a wider audience, once we were to start talking about Halo in a different way.

Speaking to Halo fans they told us that Master Chief was a heroic figure, and the story of this hero was the main reason they wanted to play this game.

He has been the star of each instalment and is Halo’s equivalent of Peter Parker or Harry Potter...a central figure the audience can rally around.

But...In campaign's for the previous Halo games the action and special effects have been key selling points. Master Chief was portrayed as a lead character in a video game, but Halo fans portrayed him as the hero of a story.

This campaign needed to focus on our ‘movie lead’. Master Chief represents the very tenets of a hero – bravery, sacrifice, duty, and selflessness.

These themes are consistent with the qualities of real heroes, and classic storytelling throughout history – they are universal and timeless themes that speak to all of us.

Instead of telling people about the action they were going to experience, like most video games, we needed to emotionally engage them is this potentially epic story that they could come and play a part in themselves. Read Less