CHALLENGE

Ubisoft spent three years and mobilized thousands of people

to build the biggest game world in Assassin's Creed history. All of it centered on ancient Sparta. The violence. The irreverence. The philosophy that weakness is worse than death. They wanted (or demanded) a launch that could actually match that energy.

INSIGHT/

STRATEGY

By 2018, smart assistants had gone mainstream. Alexa was in

millions of homes. And the internet was already roasting her for being too polite. Too helpful. Too "sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

Meanwhile, our cultural obsession with Sparta comes from the

exact opposite need. We live in a world that's been safety-proofed to death. We crave danger. Irreverent characters. Someone like the game's ultra-violent, sexually ambiguous, give-no-effs protagonist, who just happens to be called Alexios.

IDEA

ALEXIOS, THE SPARTAN ASSISTANT

What if you ripped the consciousness of a Spartan warrior out of ancient Greece and imprisoned him inside a 6" electronic cylinder on your nightstand? Meet Alexios. Basically, he's a disgruntled, sardonic, and confused soldier trapped in gold-plated hardware. He'll answer your questions. But he'll make you pay in the process.

RAPID-RESPONSE SOCIAL EXTENSION

The trailer exploded on YouTube and Twitter. People started tweeting questions at Alexios for fun. So we brought back the actor and built a rapid-response operation called #AskASpartan.

Writer’s room. Direct line to Ubisoft legal. We filmed and posted absurd responses within an hour. When asked about the process, an account person paused, took a breath, and replied, “It was a lot.”