The AA x Street Fighter - It’s OK, I’m with the AA

The AA, the UK’s leading driving services business, launched the next phase of their fully integrated marketing campaign, ‘It’s OK, I’m with the AA’. In order to assist The AA with extending the campaign in an unexpected way, Born Licensing facilitated the partnership with Street Fighter, the iconic video game franchise.

The AA’s agency The Gate London reached out to us to look at the feasibility of utilising Street Fighter characters for their marketing campaign, given the nostalgic appeal that the game has on various segments of the public. The licensing fees also needed to be within budget, and we had to ensure the characters’ Rights Holders would be comfortable with the creative idea The Gate had envisioned.

With the brief to license Street Fighter within budget, we reached out to the Rights Holder and negotiated the commercial terms. The creative team at The Gate developed a storyboard around the assets that Born Licensing received from Capcom, after walking the Rights Holder through the creative vision. Due to the nature of the assets, we also facilitated the creative use of the assets, managing to keep both parties happy and satisfied.

Born Licensing took the creative idea to Capcom to scope out the feasibility of the project. Using over a decade of industry experience and having worked with several gaming companies, we secured the rights for The AA to feature Street Fighter in their OOH campaign. With our expertise in licensing, we handled the contractual process to make it as smooth and speedy as possible for all involved, including the Rights Holder, The Gate and The AA.

Capcom, the licensors of the Street Fighter brand, had to be kept in the loop across all creative development. This included the storyboards, sound mixes, poses, edits and final material. Born Licensing managed the acquisition of the characters’ assets from Japan, and ensured all the material was available to incorporate into the project. Throughout the development we submitted updates to Capcom to confirm they were comfortable with the progress, and communicated concerns to team at The Gate. Born Licensing managed the entire approval process from start to finish, allowing all other parties to focus on what they do best.

The campaign launched at the end of July, with DOOH and social media assets being distributed in major cities across the UK at high-impact full-motion sites, and across social media platforms. The campaign consists of large scale animated executions featuring characters Ken and Ryu from Street Fighter destroying an unlucky civilian’s car with their signature martial arts moves. However, thanks to the AA, the innocent man doesn’t seem too concerned about his vehicle!