The video game franchise Halo was a benchmark for excellence, innovation and entertainment, and it was preparing to launch the latest and most anticipated game in the series: Halo Reach. The high ground of cutting-edge video games had been occupied by Modern Warfare 2 for almost a year and we needed to recapture that space for Halo Reach. We asked ourselves a series of questions. What could capture the imagination of the gaming world? What could reflect the scale, stature and iconography of Reach? How could we tap into our audience in the most creative and original way?

A key insight fuelled our solution: Iconic brands are defined by their iconic behaviour.

Our plan was to create a visual brand icon for Reach - to stun people first hand & to be circulated worldwide. With Xbox 'entertainment seekers' in mind, Westfield London stood as the perfect urban canvas. In a global first, we commissioned 6 world-renowned street artists to hand-paint three giant murals across 1,000 square metres to run across the main walkway - the "Halo Gallery". To capture the birth of this icon & allow fans to spread the story far and wide, we created and seeded a captivating film about the mural painting. It was a PR masterpiece in every respect.

In short, our campaign helped make Halo Reach was the biggest entertainment launch of 2010. Halo Reach soared to the top of the charts, with sales of £20m in week one alone and sales at Westfield's Game 30% above projected figures. 1 million people saw the beautiful artwork over a 3 week period and fans immediately posted their reactions on Twitter and Facebook. 600,000 more viewed and shared the video online within days of it appearing, and traffic to xbox.com increased 23%.

Paul Evans, Xbox EMEA Head of Media, said: "This ambitious project demonstrated how even the "last true broadcast medium" can be curated in order to deliver a spellbinding cocktail of storytelling and social impressions beyond the media placement itself. Outstanding!"