Carolyn
- Brand
- Philips
- Year
- 2013
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Music & Rhythm
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Ogilvy & Mather London
- With
- UNIT9
Objective
Philips had a reputation as "the lightbulb brand" in headphones — strong with audiophiles over 35, but audio spending was moving to a younger crowd. To win over 18-24-year-old music fans, Philips built credibility through music partnerships rather than straight advertising, and used the game to put its city-focused headphone lines, CitiScape and Downtown Denim, at the center of that pitch: headphones became the price of admission to the experience.
Solution
Put on headphones and open the game in your browser: you're driving a 16-bit arcade racer, playing as Swiss Lips frontman Sam, trying to win Carolyn back from the Flame Gang. Every move behind the wheel — swerving, clipping roadside objects, grabbing power-ups, firing on the gang's van — drops in or reshuffles a layer of the song playing under you. Forks in the road send you into one of seven different musical worlds, each with its own sound and its own ending. Finish a run and you're left with your own remix of "Carolyn" and a music video built to match it, complete with 3D camera sweeps, ready to save and share — and clips climb a leaderboard ranked by views.
- 1
The game opens at remixcarolyn.com, which players are invited to experience with headphones. It sets up the premise: playing as Sam, frontman of Swiss Lips, out to win back Carolyn from the rival Flame Gang.
- 2
The core format is a 16-bit, Out Run-style driving game viewed from behind the car on a pseudo-3D road. The soundtrack is the song "Carolyn," which the rest of the game continuously reworks.
- 3
Players steer the car with the arrow keys, dodging the Flame Gang's van; every turn and every collision changes the music instantly, so driving doubles as live remixing of the track.
- 4
Scattered along the road are audio pickups — instrument icons that add a new layer to the mix, and hitchhiking band members who do the same — plus a weapon for firing on the Flame Gang van, whose shots and hits also register as sounds woven into the remix.
- 5
Forks in the road let players choose a route, sending them into one of seven distinct "audio worlds" (a beach level with samba, a moon level with retro-space sound, and others featuring explosions, fights, a whale, and zombies), each with its own bonuses, weapons, and musical palette.
- 6
Each run ends in one of several outcomes — a win, a loss, or an alternate ending, ranging from marrying a zombified Carolyn to a broken heart.
- 7
At the finish, the player receives a personalized remix of "Carolyn" along with a matching video clip, edited with dynamic 3D camera flythroughs of the scenes just played.
- 8
The finished clip can be saved and shared, primarily to Facebook, where submissions enter a leaderboard ranked by view count; with thousands of possible remix combinations and multiple endings, the game is built to be replayed.
- 9
Offline, the same game was installed as a custom arcade cabinet at Broadway Market in Hackney, letting passersby try Philips Downtown Denim headphones and play "Carolyn" — building their own remix — right on the street.
