The Man Who Got So Hooked on a Game, He Moved Into a Ball / SEGA "THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF CHAD"

The problem

Ahead of releasing the Xbox and PlayStation version of Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, SEGA faced the challenge of how to reach 18-to-25-year-olds who didn't watch much television. Mekanism's answer was to release web episodes every Wednesday, building up a steady stream of content in the lead-up to launch day.

The insight

The goal was to strip away anything that felt like a TV commercial. The project was built like a sitcom-style serial, complete with its own theme song, to make it feel like a real show. By deliberately structuring it episode by episode with cliffhangers that left viewers wanting more, they created something people would actually want to forward to their friends.

The idea

The main character, Chad, gets so sucked into Super Monkey Ball that he literally decides to live inside a ball. This absurd premise was delivered using the format of a weekly web series, borrowing the grammar of television itself. There was no explanation of the game or its features anywhere in it — the whole thing rode entirely on the strength of this one character's bizarre way of life.

What happened

The campaign won Gold at Cannes Lions. For Mekanism, it was their second consecutive year winning Gold at Cannes, following their Napster project, and this success became a turning point that established the agency as a pioneer of viral video.

Afterthought

Pulling this off in 2005 is pretty remarkable. This was a time before TikTok, before YouTube's viral culture even existed, and yet they managed to go all-in on the idea of "turning an ad into a TV show." That takes real nerve. I do kind of wonder what Chad's up to these days.

Awards

• Cannes Lions Gold 2005

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