Deutsch Gets Twisted in the Desert

If someone handed you an automatic weapon with over seventy rounds of ammo and no repercussions, would you pull the trigger? Of course you would. And that’s exactly what Deutsch LA did this week when it held an interactive live event with Stink Digital for Playstation’s “sickest, most depraved” and longest-running franchise, Twisted Metal.

The agency first hit Shoot My Truck’s online ‘target audience’ with a Jordan Bahat-directed teaser video (above) featuring the new game's co-director/co-lead designer, David Jaffe, which racked up over 1.25 million views on YouTube (in addition to the shootmytruck.com prelaunch site). Jaffe introduces the experience and explains how fans can sign up for a chance to pull the trigger, with the vehicle owned by the game’s iconic central character being the primary target at the scene.

“Shoot My Truck is an invitation from the primary character Sweet Tooth to shoot his truck,” says Sam Bergen, creative director on location at the bottom of a valley in Nevada. “He’s a murderous clown who drives around in his demented ice cream truck as a weapon in the game.”

The thought behind the campaign comes from the idea that ‘we're all a little twisted’ and the agency intended to bring it to life in a unique way, pushing technical boundaries. Bergen reveals that the truck had been built a little over a year ago for promotional purposes and seemed like a perfect end to its life.

“We didn't just want to do your typical game launch; we wanted to invent something that had never been done before and something that would spark conversation in culture,” says the creative director. “Each shooter got 30 seconds with the gun and the chance to unload over 70 bullets.”

The guns drafted in for the job are of the M249-SAW model; a legit military grade weapon that civilians aren’t allowed to own and over 100,000 rounds were unloaded by the lucky shooters who were selected from the hopefuls who had signed up before the event. By connecting through Facebook or Twitter and by using the target on their screens all they had to do was hit a button on their keyboards to remotely shoot and further condemn the vehicle and themed surroundings.

Bergen says that seeing everything come together with all the various people involved on-site was a “personal dream come true”. There’s no doubt that a select minority of Twisted Metal’s millions of fans who got to shoot would agree. Sweet Tooth, on the other hand, might beg to differ.

You can check out the final kill shot from the event in this video and see some images from the site below.