The brief: Highlight the social aspect of alliances within the mobile game “Game of War” with something that can work globally, but get extra oomph in Asian markets.
The answer: Combine the ‘alliances to the rescue’ elements of the game with Mariah Carey’s song “Hero,” whose popularity in Asia is still off the charts compared to other markets. A full 360 campaign was built around the spot below.
The plot twist: When we pitched the original script, a producer made an offhand joke about having Mariah Carey actually be in the spot (instead of just using her song), which the way-too-rich Silicon Valley client liked the idea of. And so we wrote her in – albeit a bit reluctantly, as we thought she would take away from the humor.
Fun fact: the runner up song was "Wind Beneath My Wings," which means an ironclad, dragon-slaying Bette Midler was *this* close to happening.