ADC Awards
ADC Annual Awards is the oldest continuously running industry award show in the world, with an incredible legacy of over 100 years. These awards celebrate the very best in advertising, digital media, graphic and publication design, packaging and product design, motion, experiential and spatial design, photography, illustration and fashion design – all with a focus on artistry and craftsmanship.
Category
Best of Gaming
Annual ID
ADC105_GAM001G
To launch Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, we rejected the conventions of game marketing entirely. No trailer. No teaser. No gameplay reveal. Instead, we introduced its villain as if it were real.
We created The Guild — a fictional AI protection-tech company — and staged its IPO in the real world. Designed to mirror a credible Silicon Valley startup, The Guild appeared across trusted, non-gaming environments: podcasts, financial newsletters, Reddit threads, premium business publications, and out-of-home placements in the heart of tech culture. Every touchpoint used institutional language, founder-style messaging, and restrained corporate design. There were no game logos, no winks to entertainment, and no calls to play.
The campaign culminated in the ultimate signal of legitimacy: a takeover of Times Square and NASDAQ, complete with a stock exchange bell-ringing ceremony. By embedding a fictional entity inside the real rituals of global finance and technology, we weaponized trust itself — the very mechanism through which modern power scales.
This approach directly embodied the thematic core of Black Ops: paranoia, surveillance, automation, and the quiet consolidation of power. Rather than telling audiences what to fear, we placed them inside a moment of cultural ambiguity and let them question it in real time. The world of Black Ops wasn’t previewed — it was experienced.
When the reveal finally came, The Guild was exposed as the central antagonist of Black Ops 7. By then, audiences hadn’t simply seen a marketing stunt; they had participated in a live demonstration of how legitimacy is constructed.
The result reasserted Call of Duty’s cultural relevance by transforming a game launch into a piece of immersive social commentary — proving that in an age of skepticism, belief is the boldest creative act.
We created The Guild — a fictional AI protection-tech company — and staged its IPO in the real world. Designed to mirror a credible Silicon Valley startup, The Guild appeared across trusted, non-gaming environments: podcasts, financial newsletters, Reddit threads, premium business publications, and out-of-home placements in the heart of tech culture. Every touchpoint used institutional language, founder-style messaging, and restrained corporate design. There were no game logos, no winks to entertainment, and no calls to play.
The campaign culminated in the ultimate signal of legitimacy: a takeover of Times Square and NASDAQ, complete with a stock exchange bell-ringing ceremony. By embedding a fictional entity inside the real rituals of global finance and technology, we weaponized trust itself — the very mechanism through which modern power scales.
This approach directly embodied the thematic core of Black Ops: paranoia, surveillance, automation, and the quiet consolidation of power. Rather than telling audiences what to fear, we placed them inside a moment of cultural ambiguity and let them question it in real time. The world of Black Ops wasn’t previewed — it was experienced.
When the reveal finally came, The Guild was exposed as the central antagonist of Black Ops 7. By then, audiences hadn’t simply seen a marketing stunt; they had participated in a live demonstration of how legitimacy is constructed.
The result reasserted Call of Duty’s cultural relevance by transforming a game launch into a piece of immersive social commentary — proving that in an age of skepticism, belief is the boldest creative act.
2026 Awards
Total Points: 90
Best of Discipline Cube
Credits
Agency
72andSunny / Los Angeles
Production Company
UnderWonder / Los Angeles
Quantum Creation FX
Music / Sound Production Company
Barking Owl
Post Production Company
Nomad Editing Co. / New York
Blacksmith
Ethos
Frender
Chief Creative Officer
Zach Hilder
Chief Marketing Officer
Karen Starr
Tyler Bahl
Creative Director
Justin Batten
Ken Syme
Editor
Jai Shukla
Tommy Palumbo
Film Director
Lado Kvataniya
Group Creative Director
Ashton Rose
Senior Producer
Daniel Stenzel
Associate Director, Digital Marketing
Victor Acosta
Brand Director, Head of Marketing
Kellen Laker
Brand Supervisor
Christina Calabrese
Global Awards Director
Noelle Keeley
Group Brand Director
William Nader
Group PAL Director
Christine Claussen
Group Production Director
Jennifer Cursio
Senior PAL Manager
Kelsey Buehler
VP, Global Marketing
Matt Gilhooley
Related Awards
