Ubisoft
CASE STUDY
Launching Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft’s biggest ever campaign, was an epic collaboration… from San Francisco to Paris to London
Game launch marketing campaigns can involve a lot of administrative work, including tracking information across various documents and vendors. Managing specs and files across platforms was challenging, but we thought there could be an easier way to work — and Peach exceeded our expectations.
Katherine Bamford
Sr Manager - Global Brand Creative Operations, Ubisoft
When Ubisoft were launching their latest two games, including their biggest campaign ever for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, they worked with Peach to cut through the chaos and deliver across digital, CTV and linear — all on time. This involved handling 89 unique ads across digital and linear ads to broadcasters and platforms in 10 countries.
Challenge
Activating global advertising campaigns can be hugely complicated resulting in delays, a lack of transparency and spiralling costs.
This was the case for Ubisoft. Their campaigns are complex, multi-country affairs with a lot of moving parts, difficult-to-track activation processes across digital, CTV and linear TV, and local clearance processes. This had in the past led to confusion, difficult-to-analyse campaign data and painstaking manual work.
With multiple stakeholders worldwide, the delivery of hundreds of assets was time-consuming, with small changes having large ripple effects. Relying on documents and email communication to manage digital specs and files in-house was becoming a huge challenge.
With some huge high-profile campaigns, the marketing team were determined to solve this and streamline campaign activation.
Solution
I can’t say enough good things about our account management with Peach. They have been so generous with their expertise, facilitating incredible collaboration between all stakeholders and even organising a summit in London with different Ubisoft teams and external partners.
Katherine Bamford
Sr Manager - Global Brand Creative Operations, Ubisoft
This is where Peach, in partnership with the games producer’s creative and media agencies, Deluxe and Publicis, set about working cross-functionally to share their knowledge of multi-territory requirements and expertise in executing international campaigns
This was made possible thanks to:
- Excellent domain and local knowledge from Peach Plus who processed clearances in UK, France & Spain, systematised naming-conventions, campaign management and broadcaster instructions — ensuring that no airtime was missed and assets were distributed to the right platforms in the right format around the world
- Ad delivery platform Peach Connect and its QC and direct/activator workflows — making sure the correct files were sent to the right part of the campaign workflow using the correct specs
- Peach’s partner Comcast Technology Solutions and their Adfusion ad delivery platform designed for the US’s broadcast ecosystem
- The strategic partnership with The TEAM Companies, our colleagues managed clearance needs in North America and facilitated accessible TV and digital asset deliveries
- Reports of the progress and status of assets, proof of deliveries and volumes to vital stakeholders
- The expertise and agility of our teams which reduced the amount of revisions and improved ‘right first time’ deliveries which in turn allowed for a faster speed to market
Activating campaigns in the States can be difficult, as broadcast advertising works differently to the rest of the world. For example, it has more TV channels than the rest of the world combined. Peach worked in partnership with Comcast Technology Solutions and The TEAM Companies to ensure a seamless process.
We love the way Peach Connect QC’s and names assets in real time — it takes a huge burden from us.
Kadee Escobedo
Global Brand Project Manager, Ubisoft
Peach consulted with Ubisoft on naming conventions, data topology — simplifying the supply chain and ensuring the individual requirements of local territories were communicated from marketing to production and to media activation. Effort went into validating media plans to confirm the assets we had were up-to-date with the publisher requirements.
It’s this tailored approach that makes Peach stand out from the crowd. With a dedicated account management team who took an active role in providing onboarding and expertise every step of the way to make the campaign more efficient — Peach reduced the burden on Ubisoft and its agencies.
Result
Assassins Creed Shadows was our biggest campaign we’ve ever done, but thanks to Peach we knew we could handle it. Peach helped us fulfil our goals of leveraging every opportunity to reach players in the places they would expect to see Ubisoft. In the past, this was not always possible due to the huge administrative burden of global omnichannel campaigns, but Peach solved this for us — and has given us a blueprint for future campaigns.
Bailey Gutierrez
Director, Global Brand Operations, Ubisoft
Peach created a massive reduction in chaotic email communications, managing spreadsheets, downtime and delays to the process, resulting in delivery of all localised assets across broadcast and digital accurately and on time.
With everything from managing specs to digital delivery, Peach provided peace of mind and confidence to the Ubisoft team and their agencies, giving them an accurate and centralised view of where and what has been sent out.
