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Imitation Game?s PlayCaptcha campaign sees 99pc completion rate

Film studio StudioCanal?s video ad campaign in Britain for its film, Imitation Game, garnered a positive response, including a 99.5 percent user completion rate, and delivered nearly 60 hours of brand engagement.

The campaign was launched to raise awareness of the film?s release and drive online views of the trailer. The video ad was delivered to consumers that are known to enjoy seeing movies in theaters on reflective Web sites, including Empire, Grazia, Q and Mojo magazines.

?The PlayCaptcha is an engaging format that has been proven to raise message awareness among online audience groups,? said Hugh Spearing, head of U.K. marketing at StudioCanal. ?We are excited to have launched the first ad campaign that combines the power of a touch interaction with the storytelling value of a film trailer. 

?We are delighted to have come full circle, promoting The Imitation Game with an innovative ad format which is named after and celebrates the legacy of Alan Turing,? he said.

Driving awareness
The video ads indeed drove trailer views. Only 10 percent of users skipped the ad after five seconds, and 86 percent of viewers that interacted with the ad were still watching the trailer 10 seconds into the video.

In comparison, 94 percent of viewers skip average video ads on YouTube as soon as the Skip icon appears, according to Adludio, the company behind the PlayCaptcha format.

The campaign highlighted the lead actor Benedict Cumberbatch and showed a blurred image of him in his role of Alan Turing concentrating on an enigma-coded message. Users were invited to become active participants in the ad through a physical interaction and were asked to solve the code by clicking on two obscured keys. 

Once completed, a short animation unravels the enigma message to reveal the subject of the film and its release date, which was followed by an automatically triggered video trailer.


The initial campaign was delivered two weeks before the film?s weekend release. It was served across smartphone, tablet and desktop devices. Ninety-nine percent of users completed the activity successfully and garnered more than 12 hours of direct ad interaction.

The success of the video ad led StudioCanal to extend it during the weekends of Nov. 27-30 and Dec. 4-7 to build on the success of the film?s release.

The film was released Nov. 14.

Watching mobile rise
Video ads do well on the mobile channel.

For example, with strong engagement rates in its first year, Philips? Designed to Play mobile campaign for its razors was extended for another year with a few tweaks to enhance the performance and better reach young, tech-savvy consumers with fun, interactive videos.

Campaign partners Ogilvy & Mather Duesseldorf and Rapt Media enhanced the features and adding more videos to continue engagement. During the Designed to Play campaign?s first year, the average mobile interactive video viewing time exceeded five minutes, and developers believe the different routes continued engagement and kept viewers watching for longer periods of time (see story).

Also, JCPenney, Unilever and other brands have flocked to Tumblr?s video ads for an opportunity to engage with audiences in a less-promotionally oriented atmosphere than on other social networks. 

Universal Pictures, The CW, Hulu and Lexus also are among brands that have autoplay video ads as sponsored posts on Tumblr, as the Yahoo-owned microblogging and social networking site eyes advertisers' swelling video budgets. The opening of video ads on Tumblr - first to this select group, then to all advertisers by mid-November - comes as video?s role in meeting the needs of today?s consumers grows in importance (see story).

?It is incredibly fitting that PlayCaptcha is being pioneered to promote this fantastic film which recognizes the huge contributions of Alan Turing,? said Howard Kingston, co-founder and CMO at Adludio. ?Our new ad format replaces the ubiquitous and dreaded Captcha, a security protocol named after the Turing Test, with an easy to use branded interaction.  

?In a way, the PlayCaptcha format builds on Turing?s legacy, it is a more enjoyable and effective alternative to Captchas that aims to create better experiences for users online.?

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York