The Sith Sense
Read the story- Brand
- Star Wars
- Year
- 2005
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Quiz & Trivia
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- CP+B
- With
- Firstborn
Objective
Burger King needed a centerpiece for its worldwide "Choose Your Destiny" push around Star Wars: Episode III — one built to spread hit-by-hit through friends forwarding a link rather than through paid media, the way its earlier Subservient Chicken site had. Putting Darth Vader himself on the other side of the screen, loosely tied to the promotion, was meant to hold people's attention far longer than a banner ever could, with the URL seeded into the campaign's TV spots.
Solution
You land on sithsense.com and, with no sign-up and no detour to a store, find yourself face to face with a live-action Darth Vader on Mustafar. You think of any object, and he starts firing off multiple-choice questions, narrowing in on what's in your head. If you arrived through a friend's invite, he greets you by name before he starts; partway through, the Burger King mascot leans into frame to whisper him a hint, and stormtroopers or the Subservient Chicken pop up in the background. The session ends when Vader announces his guess — right or wrong, you're prompted to send the game to a friend so they can try to outsmart him too.
Results
The site drew 100,000 hits within its first days online, straining the server under the load, and had climbed to roughly 8,000,000 hits by mid-2006.
- 1
The player opens sithsense.com, where the game loads as a Flash experience with no registration required and sound treated as essential to the experience. Darth Vader appears walking toward the player, live-action video of the actor composited with Flash animation against the backdrop of Mustafar.
- 2
A player who arrives via a link forwarded through the game's "send a friend" feature is greeted by name, with Vader speaking the name aloud from a name field filled in earlier.
- 3
The player is prompted to think of any object, keeping it entirely in their head rather than typing or speaking it.
- 4
Vader drives a multiple-choice question-and-answer loop built on a 20-Questions AI engine, narrowing down the mystery object one selected answer at a time. Between questions he taunts and insults the player, and the screen visibly shakes whenever an answer displeases him.
- 5
Partway through the questioning, the Burger King mascot walks on screen, whispers a hint in Vader's ear, and exits — the game's core brand payoff.
- 6
Vader then states his guess at the hidden object. A correct guess triggers a celebratory scene with stormtroopers, Boba Fett, and a cameo of the Subservient Chicken walking backward in the background; a wrong guess lets play continue past the normal question limit until Vader guesses correctly or gives up.
- 7
Players can pass the game on to someone else through the built-in "send a friend" feature, entering a friend's name so Vader greets them by it when they arrive.
