USAA x Top Gun: Maverick

In the summer of 2022, USAA wanted to ride the buzz around Top Gun: Maverick to build brand awareness and promote USAA Insurance with the military community. Working with Publicis Groupe and USAA, our IMDb team gave Top Gun’s cross-generational fans a run of custom content, led by the first-to-market USAA Flight Simulator game.

Into the cockpit

The Flight Simulator put players in the cockpit of a Navy-certified F-18 during the film’s opening weekend. A personalized Call Sign Generator, U.S. Navy imagery and reactive sound effects made it feel authentic, and players flew through USAA-branded rings to rack up points before the timer ran out, with a mouse on desktop and a control pad on mobile.

On release day, USAA also sponsored a Live Show takeover on IMDb with host commentary, cast interviews, trivia and games. The sponsorship included 4 original videos about the film across IMDb and its social channels, plus a custom trivia game on Instagram.

The results

The program drove over 190MM impressions with an overall CVR of 0.04%. The takeovers brought in almost 77K site visits, with only a 2% average overlap in reach between them. The Flight Simulator had the longest dwell time of any IMDb gamified placement, more than 90 seconds with the USAA brand, and social promotion added 591K impressions, 27K video views and more than 100K engagements.