The One Show
The One Show is the world's most prestigious award show in advertising and design. For over 50 years, the Gold Pencil has been regarded as one of the top prizes in the creative industry. The One Show has a rich legacy of honoring some of the most groundbreaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity.
Category
Visual Craft / Art Direction
Annual ID
OS23_IC002G
About the Work
Released in 2012, Clash of Clans is one of the most popular mobile games in the world. But for our 10th Anniversary, we wanted to solidify Clash of Clans as an iconic gaming franchise on the same level of Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, and the other video games that have shaped our culture and lives. So, instead of celebrating our 10th Anniversary, we celebrated a fake 40th Anniversary, pulling fans into an alternate universe where Clash had existed since 1982.
It all started with an entirely made-up 20-minute documentary. We invented 3 fake founders, and followed them on an emotional roller coaster of fame, fortune, and calamity. To make it all as authentic as possible, we shot on 5 different era-specific cameras. We created commercials for fake products, fake interviews for fake morning shows, and even scenes from a fake movie. At the heart of it were 3 era-specific games—which we actually made for real—An 80s arcade platformer. A 90s racer. And, following the arc of our narrative, an intentionally disastrous and entirely unplayable 2000s open world RPG. The 80s/90s games were reformatted for the Clash app and released to our 300 million daily players.
To do it all, we designed 40-years of fake history, redesigning each of the games characters 3 times over for each decade.
We deepened the story by staging a Reddit AMA with a fake founder from our documentary. We made an IMDB page and turned our social pages into trips down memory lane releasing fake commercials from our past. We partnered with Champion, Topps, and General Mills (an actual cereal available to purchase in-stores).
The campaign was the #1 Video Trending on Youtube when it launched and garnered the highest fan sentiment in the brand’s history.
It all started with an entirely made-up 20-minute documentary. We invented 3 fake founders, and followed them on an emotional roller coaster of fame, fortune, and calamity. To make it all as authentic as possible, we shot on 5 different era-specific cameras. We created commercials for fake products, fake interviews for fake morning shows, and even scenes from a fake movie. At the heart of it were 3 era-specific games—which we actually made for real—An 80s arcade platformer. A 90s racer. And, following the arc of our narrative, an intentionally disastrous and entirely unplayable 2000s open world RPG. The 80s/90s games were reformatted for the Clash app and released to our 300 million daily players.
To do it all, we designed 40-years of fake history, redesigning each of the games characters 3 times over for each decade.
We deepened the story by staging a Reddit AMA with a fake founder from our documentary. We made an IMDB page and turned our social pages into trips down memory lane releasing fake commercials from our past. We partnered with Champion, Topps, and General Mills (an actual cereal available to purchase in-stores).
The campaign was the #1 Video Trending on Youtube when it launched and garnered the highest fan sentiment in the brand’s history.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 45
Gold Pencil
Credits
Agency
Wieden+Kennedy / Portland
Client / Brand
Supercell / San Francisco
Production Company
Spark & Riot / New York
Art Director
Liam McKay
Nick Howard
Katie Willis
Copywriter
Nick Stoner
Will Curtis
Ryan Snyder
Creative Director
Darcie Burrell
Lawrence Melilli
Director
Nalle Sjöblad
Director of Photography
Mikael Gustafsson
Executive Creative Director
Ana Balarin
Hermeti Balarin
John Petty
Executive Producer
Ricara Stokes
Ana De Diego
Motion Designer
Chris Huang
David Mellor
Konstantin Eydelman
Producer
Arpi Agdere
Devin Brown
Kacey Klonsky
Strategist
Olivia Campbell
Business Affairs Manager
Chelsea Appleby
Kevin Moyer
Kristian Evanculla
Tristan Martin
Design Director
Mike Weihs
Associate Media Director
Mary Eliason
Brand Creative Lead
Michael Gurman
Brand Director
Kimmy Cunningham
Brand Executive
Demetrius Wallace
Brand manager
Spencer Crain
Brand Marketing
Sean Cornejo
Copyediting
Erica Nikolaidis
James Yu
Lisa Kadous
Creative Operations Manager
Jaymie Steck
Valentina Savarese
Design Producer
Scott Meisse
Victoria Tengblad-Kreft
Group Brand Director
Danny Sullivan
Group Media Director
Stephanie Ehui
Group Strategy Director
Indiane Matine
Management supervisor
Jane Han
Managing director
Jess Monsey
Marketing Art Director
Eric Reimer
Marketing Coordinator
Rachael Slocum
Media Supervisor
Jarod Diaz
Motion Lead
Adam Sirkin
Motion Producer
Cameron Blake
PR
Alex Har
Danny Hernandez
Print+Fabrication
Denise Hanggi
Ellen Osborn
Kristin Holder
Retouching
Amy Ellars
Frazer Goodbody
Greg Radich
Studio Production Specialist
Beth Schuenemann
David Carney-Fenton
Ken Berg
Liliya Dru
Matt Blum
Vicki Liu
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