About Us

PROJECT MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY

Sony PlayStation × Deutsch LA

Twisted Metal — "Shoot My Truck" Campaign

World's First Internet-Controlled Machine Gun Event  ·  Valentine's Day 2012

 

100K+

Registrations (Twitter/FB)

 

1M+

YouTube Views — Day 1

 

85+

Press Pickups

 

$800K

Budget

 

5 Weeks

Desert Production Setup

​

 

55 People

On-Ground Crew

 

45

Live Explosions

 

~1,500

Shooter Turns (30 sec ea.)

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

This case study documents the project management work delivered for Sony PlayStation's "Shoot My Truck" campaign, developed with Deutsch LA to launch Twisted Metal for PS3 on February 14, 2012 (Valentine's Day). With a limited $800K budget — money that would typically fund banner ads and game-site takeovers — the team invented and executed the world's first internet-controlled machine gun event: a two-day live online shooting gallery set 30 miles from Las Vegas, where fans remotely fired a real M249-SAW at a full-scale replica of Sweet Tooth's iconic ice cream truck. The event generated over 100,000 registrations before going live, drove more than 1 million YouTube views in a single day, earned coverage from 85+ news sites, and kept #shootmytruck a nationally trending topic on Twitter for two consecutive days.

 

CLIENT & PROJECT OVERVIEW

Client:  Sony Computer Entertainment America

Agency:  Deutsch LA

Product:  Twisted Metal (PS3)

Developer:  Eat Sleep Play

Campaign Type:  Online Live Event

Launch Date:  February 14, 2012

Event Duration:  2 Days

Location:  Desert, ~30 miles from Las Vegas, NV

Budget:  $800,000

 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT ROLE

• End-to-end campaign and event project management

• Cross-functional coordination: Sony, Deutsch LA, Stink Digital, legal, on-site production crew

• Five-week desert production logistics oversight

• Digital platform and live-stream coordination

• Pre-launch influencer and press outreach management

• Risk, legal, and contingency planning

• Timeline and deliverables management across all workstreams

 

CAMPAIGN BACKGROUND

Twisted Metal — Sony's beloved PlayStation franchise built around vehicular combat and explosive car destruction — returned to consoles after a four-year absence with a new PS3 release developed by Eat Sleep Play and legendary game director David Jaffe. The challenge: re-introduce a beloved but dormant franchise to a new generation of gamers, generate genuine cultural buzz, and do it with a budget that would normally fund only standard digital banner placements.

Rather than execute a conventional campaign, Deutsch LA and Sony chose to create what Winston Binch, Chief Digital Officer at Deutsch LA, described as an "alpha moment" — something so viscerally on-brand that the hard-to-impress gamer crowd could not ignore it. The creative insight was simple and powerful: Twisted Metal fans would rather shoot the truck with a gun than with a camera. So the team decided to let them actually do it.

 

THE CAMPAIGN — "SHOOT MY TRUCK"

The Concept

"Shoot My Truck" was a two-day live online event in which fans could queue at ShootMyTruck.com — logging in via Twitter or Facebook — to remotely control a real M249-SAW light machine gun firing 70 rounds at targets in a remote Nevada desert. Targets rotated hourly and included mannequins, campy Valentine's Day props, oil drums, slabs of meat, exploding refrigerators, pianos, and the centrepiece: a full-scale replica of Sweet Tooth's ice cream truck. Three grand-finale shooters received 90 continuous seconds each, culminating in the truck being destroyed by C4 explosive. The event was live-streamed throughout.

 

ACTIVATION MECHANICS & TECHNICAL INNOVATION

 

①

World's First: Internet-controlled machine gun — a real M249-SAW operated remotely via browser, developed in collaboration with Stink Digital

②

Pre-event Outreach: Bullet-riddled physical poster/invites mailed to key gaming press and social influencers

③

Teaser Video: YouTube announcement film featuring David Jaffe, shot in-character on location — exceeded 1 million views within 24 hours of upload

④

Registration Gate: Twitter and Facebook login required to enter the queue — generating 100,000+ registrations before the event went live

⑤

Live Queue System: ~1,500 participants received 30-second shooting turns; 3 grand-finale participants received 90-second turns

⑥

Live Stream: Continuous broadcast from ShootMyTruck.com with real-time Twitter feed integration

⑦

Social Amplification: #shootmytruck maintained as a nationally trending Twitter topic across both event days

⑧

Grand Finale: Sweet Tooth's truck detonated with C4 explosive, broadcast live globally

 

 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH

STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

• Sony Computer Entertainment America brand and legal teams

• Deutsch LA creative, account, and digital leads

• Stink Digital (technical execution partner)

• Eat Sleep Play (game developer)

• On-site production crew of 55

• Gaming press and influencer network

 

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS

• 5-week desert location build and equipment setup

• M249-SAW and live-fire technical coordination

• C4 demolition logistics and safety

• Live-stream production and platform infrastructure

• Physical influencer mailer campaign execution

• Valentine's Day launch timing synchronisation

 

RISK & LEGAL

• Sony legal review for internet-controlled firearms

• Worst-case scenario planning for 2-day live event

• Platform stability and queue management under high-traffic load

• Social amplification contingency and moderation protocols

• Budget constraint management: $800K total scope

 

RESULTS & IMPACT

CAMPAIGN PERFORMANCE

• 100,000+ pre-event registrations via Twitter and Facebook

• 1,000,000+ YouTube views within 24 hours of teaser launch

• 85+ news sites covered the campaign organically

• #shootmytruck nationally trending on Twitter for 2 consecutive days

• ~1,500 active participants received live shooting turns

• 45 live explosions, 55-person on-ground crew, 5-week production

• Grand finale truck detonation broadcast live to global audience

• Featured in Digiday, Fast Company, Fortune, Econsultancy, and more

 

PM DELIVERY HIGHLIGHTS

• Executed a first-of-its-kind internet-controlled live weapons event on a constrained $800K budget

• Delivered 5-week desert location production on schedule and without safety incidents

• Coordinated real-time legal, technical, and creative workstreams simultaneously

• Managed the highest-risk elements of a live 2-day event with 55 on-ground personnel

• Achieved viral launch-day results: 1M+ views and trending status before event day ended

• Replaced conventional media spend with a zero-waste earned-media strategy that punched far above budget weight

 

INDUSTRY RECOGNITION & PRESS

 

Digiday

"Idea of the Day" — featured as a standout innovative campaign, February 14, 2012

Fast Company

"A Look At Twisted Metal's Explosive Promo" — detailed feature on the creative and logistics

Fortune

"A Virtual Firing Range to Goose Real Sales" — business analysis of the budget-to-impact ratio

Econsultancy

"Sony Broke New Ground" — featured as a landmark example of experiential digital marketing

85+ outlets

Organic press pickup across gaming, tech, marketing, and mainstream news publications

 

 

"This definitely is not your typical game launch or promotion, but it feels so right for the genre, the game, and the audience. You have to be working at the speed of the Internet as a brand — that's the thing that gets people most excited."

— Winston Binch, Chief Digital Officer, Deutsch LA