It was many moons ago that the team first sat down to brainstorm ideas to raise awareness of Cisco's role as the official network infrastructure supporter of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games - in particular to do something a little bit 'surprising' as far as Cisco marketing was concerned, whilst still driving lead generation. A tricky brief to nail, but we are a clever bunch and soon, in a moment of clarity (and after several custard creams), we had it - AN ONLINE 2012 THEMED GAME THAT USES LONDON VISUALS, SUPPORTED BY A KICK-ASS VIRAL CAMPAIGN!

Most pleased, we all went home for a sleep.

However, as with all good ideas, a lot of hard work and planning was needed. So when we came in the next day, battle commenced - pitching it to the client, commissioning the game and of course creating an all singing, all dancing media plan. The team has a wealth of experience when it comes to product launches, but this time we really wanted to challenge ourselves and blend traditional media with lesser known digital tactics.

The concept of the game was simple enough - one of the Cisco London 2012 Ambassadors is British sprint kayak gold medallist, Tim Brabants, and he became our inspiration. We put together plans for a game based on a kayak simulation against a London backdrop.

And what of the name? Well a quick brainstorm put that to rights - KAYAKATTACK!

Once again, we were most pleased.

Game in hand, next came the plan. We had all the components you would expect at the core; an internal, executive and partner comms strategy, a fully inclusive social media campaign, a media alert and an all encompassing press list. Next we focussed on a seeding campaign, instigating a partnership with gaming website, GameNet, who we signed up to host KayakAttack as its featured game on the home page.

The next, and frankly only logical, step was to source a bakery that could bake and decorate 50 massive cakes with a KayakAttack screen grab and URL details. These were set to go out to our top 50 publications - a mixture of technology, consumer, business and marketing (not forgetting one for us!)

Launch day arrived and we all met in the office tired but excited - it was here and all there was to it was to make it a bloody success! And low and behold it was! Almost as soon as the day kicked off we were receiving tweets of thanks and support for KayakAttack. The likes of Heat, PC Pro, Computing and Loaded tweeted pictures, plus Olympian Tim Brabants and the Cisco Executive team also joined in the celebrations. In short, the campaign was a hit; the blood sweat and tears paid off. As launch week drew to a close we had not only exceeded our target but exhausted our finger tips playing the game - it's really rather addictive you know!

It's been a massive learning curve for the Cisco gang, but we are all bigger and better for having gone through it. To date KayakAttack has had 520,603 plays and experienced a social media audience reach of nearly one million. Needless to say… we are most pleased.

If you haven't already - log on and get playing! http://www.kayakattack.co.uk/

Bevo @KeBeveridge