Wargaming gives tanks for Christmas

Each year, video game maker Wargaming organises a seasonal takeover by a movie star for its World of Tanks game. While last year we got Arnie, 2023 sees the turn of former professional footballer-turned-movie star, Vinnie Jones.

Created by independent creative agency CUBO, the five minute film, called No Going Back, introduces us to Jones as one of Father Christmas's covert enforcers, dealing with those who have been naughty, rather than nice. This year, however, Vinnie isn't here to hand out the punishments, but to hand over his resignation because he's decided to leave his post to seek a new opportunity: becoming a commander in World of Tanks ... but not before he and his crew knock out one last 'naughty list'.

Directed by former shots Awards New Director of the Year Andzej Gavriss, through HALAL, the ambitious film eschews the usual saccharine Christmas campaigns for a spot of grittier Christmas cheer. Fittingly, this unconventional campaign was made in an unconventional way, using CUBO’s agile methodology. The entire campaign was conceived, written and approved in a ‘creative sprint’ that took just five days - with creatives, director, stand-in actors, production and client brainstorming and collaborating throughout. 

“It’s always a privilege to work with gaming studios," said Henry Scott, Creative Director at CUBO. "For them, entertainment isn’t a means to an end, it pays the bills. From the start, we didn’t want to make your average festive campaign - we wanted to bring some big characters to the screen and give gamers something they hadn’t seen before.”

“It’s great to see such a visceral demonstration of what a sprint can do," said CUBO’s CCO Andre Matarazzo of the creative methodology the team employed. "We’ve done over a hundred so far, that have had impacts in all sorts of ways. Each time, we fine tune the process to deliver the maximum results from the shortest periods of time. When you sprint, you don’t do tissue sessions, you don’t need account managers, multiple creative routes or even an office. A multicultural team, full focus, deep collaboration and constant consumer testing. Those are the drivers of fresh thinking today.” 

“Setting aside the challenge of combining Christmas with tanks, we were super-excited about working with our first games client - and Wargaming didn’t disappoint," added Gijs Determeijer, a partner at HALAL. "It was refreshing to team up with a creative agency like CUBO right from the start, combining their strategic expertise and our production skills - and truly crafting the film together from storyboard to post. The result is something we are all really proud of - a true cinematic piece of entertainment for the fans of the game! We are super stoked about all the reactions in the comments section.”