Dead Man’s Tale was a unique online interactive adventure that played out on Microsoft Windows Live Messenger and featured story experiences based on Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” in advance of that film’s worldwide launch in July 2006. Deliver an engaging social entertainment experience using Windows Live Messenger which showcased and drove usage of the new Messenger feature set, including search, spaces, and interactive bots. The campaign started with a call to action for the audience to sign on as a member of the crew of the Black Pearl from Pirates. The experience took place entirely within Windows Live Messenger, and was narrated by a “bot” character named Billy Bones, the Pirates movie icon come to life. Billy presented the players challenges within Messenger – each successful encounter by the player unlocked a glimpse into what was going to happen to the lead characters in the second Pirates film. From beginning to end, Dead Man’s Tale included a dozen flash games / interactive puzzles, and was designed to appeal both to casual users, through simple and immediately rewarding interactions, as well as to enthusiasts, who could push into deeper levels of the entertainment and share their findings with friends. And for those brave souls who made it to the end, their reward was excusive and never-before-seen footage from Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” To provide an easy entry point, Dead Man’s Tale started as a single player experience, but it was ultimate designed for a “community of two,” so that it would leverage the personal interactions that organically take place within Messenger and promote the use of the product and feature set on a small scale – millions of times over. More than three and a half million unique people participated in Dead Man’s Tale. Players spent an average of more than 30 minutes within Tale and during their play experienced the key new features of Windows Live Messenger. In addition, the campaign drove nearly 200,000 wholly new downloads of the Windows Live Messenger platform. Dead Man's Tale was the recipient of four 2006 W3 Awards from the International Academy of the Visual Arts, including the Best of Show award for Movies & Films. deadmanstale.com