Steel Battalion is a game from Capcom for the home console market. Originally developed for the PlayStation 2, Steel Battalion was most recently adapted for Xbox, with the latest version taking advantage of the Kinect motion-activated control system. To promote the Xbox Kinect edition, Capcom wanted an online campaign that would give users a taste of Steel Battalion action, and inspire them to purchase the game through a featured link.

The gaming audience is quick to spot and ignore overly commercial messages, so it was necessary for the designers at Say Media to use as much Steel Battalion content as possible. For a game like Steel Battalion, where the on-screen action and game-play experience are what separate it from others in the genre, it was important that as much content as possible was incorporated into Say's proprietary AdFrames3 display format.

Say worked with the creative assets supplied by Capcom to build a snapshot of the Steel Battalion experience. When users hovered their mouse over the animated banner, the unit expanded to a themed full screen takeover. The ad allowed the user to watch game-play footage, view character schematics, read the game storyline and click-through to purchase the game. Social sharing functions were also included for viewers to spread the experience among their peer groups.The versatility of the AF3 platform allowed the design team to deliver an enticing experience.

In terms of the objectives achieved, the Steel Battalion AF3 unit over-delivered on contracted engagements, with 112,552 engagements against 107,913 contracted (104.3%). Users spent a combined total of 28,905 minutes with the campaign,spread over 113,171 video views.The average time spent with Steel Battalion was 26.8 seconds, which is nearly 8 seconds above comparable benchmarks. Click-to-site rate over 9,334 sessions reached an impressive 8.29%.

The Steel Battalion campaign was successful both in terms of marketing outcome and creative measure. The campaign won an internal award at Say Media for 'Top Creative,' beating all other campaigns globally.