Tommy Pinball
- Brand
- Stratford Festival
- Year
- 2013
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Shannonkarleen
Objective
The Stratford Festival was staging Tommy, its most expensive production ever, and needed to sell tickets fast ahead of the May 30, 2013 premiere. Pinball built the campaign around the show's own anthem, «Pinball Wizard» — turning a song people already knew into something they could actually play and then act on.
Solution
The game opens straight in the browser on a table dressed as the show's poster — Union Jack, the Tommy logo, the hero's face lit up in a yellow circle. Hit the red PLAY button, skim a one-line instruction, then launch the ball with the down arrow and work two flippers with the left and right arrow keys. Five balls are on the clock, tracked against the day's high score as targets, lit lanes, bumpers, and kickers pay out 100 to 1,000 points a hit. When the last ball drains, the table goes dark and a marquee-style screen asks for a three-letter initials tag for the leaderboard, then offers three moves: run it back, post the score to Facebook, Twitter, or email, or cash in a discount code on tickets — a bigger cut if the score cracked the day's top scores. Anyone on a phone gets waved off to a desktop instead.
Results
The campaign's live event set a Guinness World Record on May 16, 2013 — 100 people playing pinball tables at once. The Tommy season drew 50,000 more visitors than the year before (an 11% jump) and turned the festival's prior $3.4 million deficit into a $1.4 million surplus.
- 1
The player lands on a dark arcade-cabinet marquee branded for Stratford Festival's Tommy production, showing the run dates, a Buy Tickets button, and a PLAY button.
- 2
Pressing PLAY brings up an instructions overlay explaining the controls — down arrow to launch the ball, left and right arrows to work the flippers — before a START button begins the game.
- 3
The table fills the screen as a pinball board themed to the Tommy poster art (Union Jack field, Tommy's face, PINBALL WIZARD ribbon, lyric text), with a header showing five life lights, the day's high score, and the player's own score starting at zero.
- 4
The player launches the ball with the down arrow and works two flippers with the arrow keys, aiming for lit lane letters, numbered targets, bumpers, and kickers that add to the score with each hit.
- 5
Each ball that drains costs one of the five life lights, and a new ball is served automatically until all five are lost.
- 6
When the last ball drains, the table gives way to a results screen listing the day's top scores against the player's own final score, with a prompt to enter a three-letter initials tag that gets submitted to the leaderboard.
- 7
From the results screen the player can replay, and a ticket-discount link offers a promo code that steps up to a bigger discount if the score beats the second-place entry on the day's leaderboard.
- 8
A share option opens a popup with the player's score and one-click links to post it to Facebook or Twitter or send it by email, each pre-filled with score-boasting copy.
- 9
The results screen also surfaces a banner for an in-person Stratford Festival pinball event, and the page footer links out to the festival's own site and social channels.
- 10
On phones and tablets the table appears grayed out with a handwritten note directing players to a desktop computer, since the game is not playable on mobile.
