Looney Tunes World of Mayhem is a wild, mobile RPG full of cartoon violence and zany battles between the iconic characters from the classic cartoons. Our goal for launch day was to create a mayhem-filled, buzzworthy experience full of joyous destruction that would make some noise across the Internet on launch day.
Anyone who’s ever watched a Looney Tunes cartoon knows the iconic ACME company, the brand of products that Wile E. Coyote often orders to help him catch that speedy Road Runner. Of course, the products always backfire in unexpected and hilarious ways.
What if we gave fans an exclusive look into the ACME Test facility, a full work shift, eight straight hours LIVE from the lab as we look into a day in the life of the ACME product testers as they put the newest product through it’s paces. The unveiling of the TurboAnvil 3000, the most iconic weapon in cartoon history.
Playing on the outsized tone of voice of the game’s marketing, we designed an invitation to the unveiling of the Turbo Anvil 3000, done in the style of an Apple product announcement, ironically positioning a metal anvil as ACME’s latest technical innovation.
We produced and directed documentary style clips that would be used to create short, deadpan promos about what it’s like to work at the ACME test lab. Done in a mockumentary style a la The Office, our stars answered questions about anvils, life in the lab and whether they see birdies or stars when they get bonked on the head.
We teased the best moments out across social media to generate excitement about the upcoming stream, the mayhem to come at the lab and then ran a 15 hour countdown the night before the event to build some hype.
we wanted to use a limited color palette, simple materials and bright pops of blue, yellow and red to achieve a hyper-stylized cartoon aesthetic. We sparingly used accents of wood and metal to create a realistic but slightly absurd work environment that felt like a place our two testers worked everyday. We mocked up set design concepts, brought in practical LED tickers and active lighting to the set and outfitted our actors with stylish but functional safety gear.
The Anvil Machine was of course critical to the success of our stream. We needed a cool looking device that didn’t overshadow our anvil but also could hold up to the rigors of upwards of 30 drops over eight uninterrupted hours. A motorized pulley system allowed us to raise and lower it and an electromagnet held it in place. Then we gave it a nice coat of paint and got to work on the details including fictitious work orders and test analysis reports.
We brainstormed epic lists of the most ridiculous and satisfying props we could imagine smashing and plotted out a day in the life of our test lab employees broken down to 20 minute increments. The props were split into brackets, created a detailed backstory for the characters and built brackets pitting each prop against a worthy opponent that the audience could vote on, deciding what they wanted to see smashed next.
Our low-key stream was meant to swing between deadpan and absurd, with stretches of the testers filling out paper work, flying paper airplanes and exchanging small talk. The normal stuff people do to pass the time at work while they’re waiting to crush something with a one-hundred-fifty pound anvil.
Countdown elements, lower thirds and full-screen animations prepared for each potential winning prop that we might smash.
A live-ticker running at the bottom of the screen provided a way to to interact with the viewers through pithy comments, wisecracks and funny commentary on the action as it unfolded.
Interactive polls were devised to track user voting in real time and show the results visually in real-time.
The final touch was a lo-fi VHS overlay that gave the stream the look of a video signal from an analog camcorder to enhance the feeling of the stream being recorded for research purposes.
At 10am on the morning of the event we went live as our actors started their shift at work. Starting slowly and building steam, the audience first voted between crushing a donut or a coffee cup, two props the talent were interacting with.
When it was time to crush something, we sent a work order to the printer on set next to actors’ desk. They retrieved the appropriate item and then placed it under the anvil machine. We let the audience sweat a little, the anvil hanging precariously above the object. The testers waited for the crush-alarm from “corporate”, a deafening foghorn/buzzer combo that blasted through the set and triggered lights and sirens to active. The testers pressed the button and released the anvil to gloriously destructive results.
At 10am on the morning of the event we went live as our actors started their shift at work. Starting slowly and building steam, the audience first voted between crushing a donut or a coffee cup, two props the talent were interacting with.
When it was time to crush something, we sent a work order to the printer on set next to actors’ desk. They retrieved the appropriate item and then placed it under the anvil machine. We let the audience sweat a little, the anvil hanging precariously above the object. The testers waited for the crush-alarm from “corporate”, a deafening foghorn/buzzer combo that blasted through the set and triggered lights and sirens to active. The testers pressed the button and released the anvil to gloriously destructive results.
thanks to the interactive voting and overall viewership spiked throughout the day, with many in the audience came back multiple times between 10am and 6pm as we kept the actors on their toes with surprises and twists to the storyline.
Our 8-hour livestream was a stunt unlike any other. Irreverent, full of destruction and the kind of i-can’t-believe-they’re-doing-this spectacle designed to go viral. Turns out, people love to watch things get crushed. With over 2.5 million live stream viewers and 6 million impressions, fans from around the world joined us for a day of mayhem.
Thanks to our completely insane event, Looney Tunes: World Of Mayhem launched at #1 in the App store, landing in an explosion of massive success for the client on launch day.