The [a]list Brand Leadership Group

The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) is a hugely successful, award-winning MMO and Turbine decided to take it to the next level of popularity by making it free-to-play. Many games had done this before, but a franchise with the clout of the legendary books and films behind it provided an opportunity to make this an epic announcement. Our challenge was to leverage the free-to-play business model to appeal to fans of the franchise as well as existing players to expand LOTRO's audience. By embracing the power of freedom, we leveraged a pivotal scene from the films with the greatest wizard of them all, Gandalf, announcing - "YOU SHALL NOT PAY!" The live action announcement was staged at The Lord of the Rings Online fictional headquarters as fans raged outside demanding freedom. A multi-tiered, integrated online media campaign got the message out online across a wide audience of gamers and fans of the franchise. Together with a robust online campaign built upon a response driven audience segmentation model, we invited the world to play a premium adventure with the highest standard of quality in gaming by breaking through to the right audience with what to expect from a free-to-play game.