2K Sports came to us with an interesting proposition. After a three-year hiatus (brought on when Electronic Arts entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with the NFL), they were returning to the football video game arena with a next-gen game called All Pro Football 2K8. 2K Sports knew they had a killer game on their hands, starring 250 football legends and including just about everything a gamer could want. But just how do you re-introduce yourself after being gone for so long?

We created a campaign called “Football Resurrected” to spread the word that everything fans ever loved about football was back and in this game: the legends, the excitement, the parts of the game that had been outlawed by the “No Fun League.” From hall-of-famers like Jerry Rice, to real trash talking between players, to the endzone chicken dance after a glorious TD… if it made football great, you could now play it once more.

To bring this to life, we contacted several of hip-hop’s most beloved legends, including Rakim & Chali 2NA, and worked with them on six unique odes to the football legends and game features. Much like the game, these six episodes took something well-loved from the past (the hip-hop icons) and made something entirely new-school with them. The episodes became the cornerstone of the campaign, with both innovative and traditional media driving viewership by the target audience.