After 25 years & being deemed King of the (American) football kingdom – Madden’s reign faltered. In a year’s time, the storied video game franchise experienced a 650,000 unit drop in sales.

Even more troubling, the Madden buyer was getting older, with an average age of 26 (four years older than other top-selling games). This further punctuated the fact that gamers had shifted their sights toward first-person shooters (Call of Duty) and action-adventure games (Grand Theft Auto V).

In order to hit our sales numbers for the year and combat a devastating decline, we needed to tap into the behaviors and interests of an emerging audience of gamers, build anticipation for the launch of our upcoming game, while simultaneously extending relevance of Madden all season long.

It’s Madden Season – A music video featuring gamers’ favorite celebrities, athletes and pop culture references. It starred Kevin Hart and Dave Franco engaging in the ultimate Madden rivalry. The two traded trash talk and pranks, before sitting down to play Madden during a party in which Franco’s house burns down. ?

Madden GIFERATOR – During every NFL game, the Madden GIFERATOR fused live NFL data with Madden 15 game footage to generate a live stream of GIFS that were personalized to fans based on their favorite teams. Fans were also able to create and send their own rivalry-themed GIFs.

Within the first few weeks, the Madden Season campaign greatly exceeded all expectations + EA’s wildest dreams:

- Madden Season earned 36MM views (to-date) on Facebook and YouTube

- Giferator was the #4 most searched-for GIF on Google, just after Frozen

- 618,880 animated GIFs were created by fans

- Sales went up 14% while category sales declined 13%

- Madden 15 experienced its best sales year in franchise history, becoming the #2 selling game of 2014