Forza fans have developed extraordinary skills over the years, and they love a chance to show them off.

So our idea was to create the ultimate content that would take place in two parts.

First fans from all around the world would battle it out against each other online to find out who is the fastest Forza car racer around.

Then we would fly the winning fan to Australia to compete in a very special race against a real life racing car driving on a lap of the Mount Panorama track at Bathurst in Australia, one of the newest tracks to feature in Forza Motorsport 6.

It would be the ultimate battle of virtual and reality, and the winner of the race would be named Xbox King of the Mountain.

Implementation:

By structuring this campaign in three stages we were able to create three separate opportunities to engage with fans. While the initial stage (the fan vs fan contest) was executed in-game, the reach was phenomenal with more than five million Forza fans getting the chance to win the trip to Australia. This cleverly set up the audience for the next stage (the race to find the King of the Mountain), and ultimately for the final event, the Xbox One team racing in the Bathurst 1000.

Timeline:

September and October, 2015

Placement:

In game, Xbox.com, across Xbox social channels, television broadcast and on-track branding.

Scale:

$1 million budget

The campaign was a thundering success and the launch of Forza Motorsport 6 was the #1 digital launch in Xbox history.

- Xbox owned key moments of the 2015 Bathurst 1000 race, which was broadcast to the world

- $2.6 million in earned media (exceeded client objectives by $600k)

- Record number of fans participated in the challenge on Forza Motorsport 6 and over 4 million virtual kilometres were logged as part of the virtual race.

- Second most successful launch program globally

- Year-on-year digital sales grew by 50%