Video game developer Ubisoft Canada has picked Lg2 as its new primary agency.

Lg2’s mandate will be to support Ubisoft and its internal teams in the creation of campaigns on digital, experiential, content and social platforms, as well as more traditional advertising. The assignment comes following an RFP, with several agencies invited to participate.

Ubisoft, which has Canadian offices in Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia, previously worked with Bleublancrouge as its primary creative agency. The company continues to work with North Strategic on PR and MediaCom on offline media as part of its agency roster.

Over the last several years, Ubisoft has been working to bring more of its marketing capabilities in-house, internalizing more of its creative, events, media and social work. But Simon Joly, marketing manager at Ubisoft Canada, says the company still wants to work with agencies that are “the best in any given expertise” and can be an “extension” of those internal capabilities. That model fits with changes in the way video games are made and marketed, says Joly. Between downloadable extra content, the advent of live-streaming platforms and sharing content on social media, the life cycle of a video game is much longer than it was even a few years ago.

“What that means from a marketing standpoint is that we’re shifting our efforts and moving away from being all-in at the launch and just going into more of an ‘always on’ communications and [having ongoing] conversations with players over a much longer period of time,” Joly says. “It’s like going from a sprint to a marathon. Having efforts spread out throughout the year and also having new games come out all the time is a lot. So it helps to have different agencies all around us to have the bandwidth to be responsive all the time while also planning bigger projects.”

While a big part of Lg2’s mandate is supporting the launch of new Ubisoft games, it will also be working on ongoing efforts to engage fans of its properties. One of the first projects Lg2 has been working on is FAM, a program Ubisoft announced recently that will be exclusive to the Canadian market. FAM is meant to build a community of Canadians around Ubisoft’s games by celebrating their achievements, creating personalized content and giving them exclusive offers, experiences and rewards.

Many of Ubisoft’s recent marketing efforts have been around what Joly describes as “putting its fans forward” through things like user-generated content, although those were done on a game-by-game basis. While he wasn’t able to provide more details about FAM, Joly says it meant to “tie together” efforts that were previously disconnected from one another in a way that would empower and celebrate its fans. The “Welcome to the FAM” video (below) declares “we are family” and that “a family that plays together stays together.”

More tactics and content related to FAM are expected to launch in the coming weeks. Alexis Robin, partner and VP of digital experiences at Lg2, says the progress Ubisoft has made with its internalization efforts is a big reason the agency has been able to come on board quickly and effectively.

“It’s a very sophisticated client and something we appreciate,” he says. “Their internalization is very advanced and that makes the relationship fruitful. In a matter of weeks, we were able to already put some work out.”