In 2023 Xbox expanded their Elite controller series to include a new SKU at a lower price point than its predecessors, making elite gaming more achievable for all. We set out to raise awareness of the entire family of controllers, including the customizable Design Lab hub, by harnessing the power of TikTok sounds and 90s nostalgia.
"Elite” has been largely synonymous with gunmetal gray and stark white, complimenting traditionally elite gaming culture – but gaming culture has evolved. A new generation of players have broadened the appeal of gaming with saturated RGB lighting and cross-cultural pollination. With a more accessible price point and Design Labs personalization, Xbox is redefining Elite gaming, where the passionate – not just the pros – shape culture.
A new generation of players are looking for avenues of self expression, so we showed them that Elite gaming belongs in their hands. To do this, we put gamers at the forefront of popular culture in a way that's been traditionally reserved for conventional elite athletes: the art of cereal. And with that, Xbox Elite Cereal was born.
It all started with a playful parody of classic cereal commercials, complete with custom commercial jingle built for social and a bespoke Xbox CG mascot. The spot revealed three different cereal flavors mapped to our three controller flavors – Mallos for Xbox Design Lab, Wheat Flakes for the classic ES2, and Frosted for the new Core SKU – and featured our three hero cover creators: Loserfruit, Myth, and Chica. Our boxes featured custom back of box games, easter eggs, and “nutritional facts” to deepen the experience. Our hero talent then took to TikTok to reveal their customized cereal boxes and “special prize” inside, their preferred flavor of Elite Series 2 controller.
But we didn’t stop there, we sent out dozens more custom cereal boxes and ES2 controllers to content creators around the world, sparking an outpouring of additional organic UGC as players took to social to share their boxes. And while the campaign took off across social, our design team built custom static and motion key art that honored the visual design style of Xbox Elite Cereal while serving up broad, multipurpose assets that became the visual backbone of the Elite brand across Xbox channels, dot com, CRM, and out of home, premiering at a Los Angeles Lakers home game.
By merging gaming with popular culture, Xbox Elite Cereal exemplified the essence of elite gaming for all gamers: unity, inclusivity, and passionate self-expression. This campaign drove over 20,000,000 video views and generated 98% positive sentiment across socials.
