The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024
Gong Awards 2024 launches entries with Metal Combat, a playable arcade game
Singapore's advertising festival turned its call for entries into a retro fighting game where satirical ad archetypes battle in award-category arenas.
Gong Awards
What it had to solve
The Gong Awards, Singapore's premier advertising festival run by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents (4As), wanted to reignite interest as its 2024 entry window opened on 17 July 2024. The launch had to make entering the show feel like the competition it celebrates: a battle of creative ideas.
How it works
The Gong Awards is Singapore's premier advertising festival, run by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Singapore (4As). Its organizers wanted to reignite interest as the 2024 entry window opened, and the launch idea came from the obvious place: an awards show exists to celebrate a battle of creative ideas, so the call for entries should feel like one too.
BBH Singapore's in-house innovation lab built Metal Combat in Unreal Engine: a retro 90s-arcade fighting game in which players pick tongue-in-cheek advertising idea archetypes as fighters, characters stuffed with agency cliches and in-jokes, and duel in arenas themed on award categories such as Design, Direct and OOH, to a custom soundtrack.
The game went live on a dedicated website on 17 July 2024, the same day the Gong Awards opened for entries, and was backed by a 3D out-of-home teaser and game-cartridge mailers to jury chairs. The D&AD awards archive keeps a case page for the work with the 4As as client; it publishes no response figures, so the case rests on the idea: an entry drive that was itself playable.
Why it lands
- The idea makes the product literal: an awards show for ideas invited agencies to fight for supremacy in a real game, so the entry call entertained instead of feeling administrative.
- Fighters built from recognizable advertising archetypes and arenas named after award categories let every agency see itself, turning industry in-jokes into participation.
- Releasing the game on the day entries opened tied playing directly to the decision to enter, and the out-of-home teaser plus cartridge mailers gave the launch a before-and-after arc.
- Building the game from scratch in Unreal Engine with an original soundtrack signaled the festival's own creative ambition rather than a cheap stunt.
What it did
The call for entries itself became creative work: agencies could play the show's battle of ideas on the site tied to entering, and the festival gained a launch moment built around play rather than reminders. The D&AD awards archive records the campaign with the 4As as client and publishes no response figures, so the documented result is the playable game and its place in the awards record.
What you can take
When the thing you sell is competition between ideas, make the invitation competitive: a playable game turns the call for entries into the show's opening round.
Since then
Metal Combat served as the launch of the Gong Awards 2024 and the festival's opening carried its theme. The D&AD awards archive records the work with the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Singapore as client and publishes no response figures, so the documented outcome is the idea itself: an advertising festival whose call for entries was a playable arcade battle between the industry's own stereotypes.
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