Rise Of The Chevy Autobots
Read the story- Brand
- Chevrolet
- Year
- 2007
- Objective
- Sales
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Simulation & Strategy
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Campbell-Ewald
- With
- Shane Mielke
Objective
Chevrolet was the official vehicle partner of Michael Bay's "Transformers" and wanted a way to hold the film's audience past the two-hour screening, across the full marketing window running up to the July 3, 2007 premiere. Instead of just placing cars on screen, the brand turned its own model lineup into playable characters players could choose, build up, and fight for, using premiere tickets and an XM subscription as sign-up incentives.
Solution
Players land on chevyautobot.com (or click through from chevrolet.com), register, and name their own robot with Transformers-style suffixes before picking one of seven Chevy Autobots, each based on a real Chevrolet model — Avalanche, Aveo, Cobalt, Equinox, HHR, Impala, Silverado — with its own strength rating and signature moves. From there it's PvP: players spend upgrade points to power up their bot, then issue up to ten challenges a day to other registered players, choosing an attack and a target body part across five rounds per duel, with drone fights and a boss battle unlocking later. Between duels, the site runs as Bumblebee's ongoing war-room broadcast, posting intercepted Decepticon transmissions for the community to decode, with shared rewards tied to a three-month storyline against Mainframe. A visit can be one quick duel or a longer stop to read the day's intel and take on new challengers.
Results
More than 250,000 players registered daily, with average site engagement above 15 minutes per visit, sustained over a three-month, real-time campaign with daily story updates.
- 1
Players arrive at chevyautobot.com (also reachable via chevrolet.com/autobot) to find not a car site but Bumblebee's communications hub: two squads of Autobots have landed on Earth hunting for the AllSpark, some already lost, and Bumblebee is recruiting new fighters — Chevy Autobots.
- 2
Players register for an account to take part in battles and prize drawings; entry required US citizenship or residency, so players from other countries could not complete registration.
- 3
Players name their robot, optionally appending a classic Transformers suffix such as Prime, Supreme, or -otron, then pick one of seven Chevy Autobot models — Avalanche, Aveo, Cobalt, Equinox, HHR, Impala, or Silverado — each with its own power level and special moves tied to that real car's traits.
- 4
Players spend upgrade points to boost their robot's stats or unlock new moves, and can switch to a different model at any time, though switching forces all accumulated points to be redistributed from scratch.
- 5
The core loop is challenging other live players to duels, up to ten a day with no immediate rematch of the same opponent; players can also review incoming challenges and decline without penalty, and an unanswered challenge simply expires back to the sender, while there is no cap on how many challenges a player can accept.
- 6
Each duel runs five rounds: both fighters pick a move and a body part to target, then watch the resulting animation play out. Head shots end the fight instantly at 100% damage but are hardest to land, the torso holds the most hit points, and destroying an opponent's arms or legs strips their melee attacks or dodging respectively.
- 7
Whoever deals more damage over the fight wins, and hitting win milestones grants more upgrade points; later, players unlock battles against computer-controlled drones, which attack with random patterns and carry far more health than human opponents.
- 8
Beyond PvP, the whole player base follows a single story unfolding in real time over three months: Bumblebee posts daily war updates and runs code-breaking contests using intercepted Decepticon transmissions that reward prizes and unlock new upgrades community-wide, while the narrative escalates through a site 'hack' that knocks it offline, a full-scale drone invasion, Bumblebee's own capture, and guidance from a mysterious contact call-signed '10-22' who later turns out to be Optimus Prime, culminating in players and Optimus tracking down and defeating the villain Mainframe in the Arctic.
- 9
Participating gives players a chance to win a 30-day XM satellite radio subscription, tickets to the Transformers movie, or an all-expenses-paid trip for two to the film's premiere.
