Background:
King, the creators of Candy Crush, wanted to launch a new mobile game, Legend of Solgard, in a way that would appeal to serious strategy gamers. The problem? Serious strategy gamers are highly skeptical of mobile games—viewing them as cheap, childish, and shallow. So, in addition to introducing brand new IP, we had to appeal to an audience that was highly skeptical of our brand, the product, and sponsorships in general. It was an uphill battle from the start. We knew that in order to stand out, we needed to make a splash. We needed to go where the real gamers were, speak their language, and tap into the native behaviors of their favorite platforms.
The Creative Approach
We bottled the spirit of a mobile game as a hot sauce to create YouTube’s most legendary unboxing. First, we took the game's fire vs. ice theme and bottled it in the form of a custom "Solgard Scorcher" hot sauce—primed for YouTube's creator culture and epic challenges.
Then, we froze phones with the game in blocks of ice, locked them in Legend of Solgard chests, and sent them to popular gaming influencers. Once they broke out their phone, the challenge really started to heat up as influencers took on the game and shots of the hot sauce as they played.
Additionally, we extended our campaign to where gamers and modern culture live: Complex. By partnering with their hit YouTube show, Hot Ones, we delivered a first-of-its-kind brand integration in which our Solgard Scorcher hot sauce was sampled and conquered alongside legendary hot sauces by host Sean Evans and renowned celebrity chef Eddie Huang.
The Strategy
So, give the game to the biggest gaming influencers? Not quite. Our target audience weren’t hardcore gamers nor casual mobile game fans, they were a niche group called “midcore gamers” which meant an A-list one-size-fits-all influencer wasn’t going to cut it. To reach them, we needed to be more targeted, diverse, and strategic with our partnerships.
We observed that midcore gamers live on Youtube, where they split their time between diving deep into strategy and sharing absurd humor. With this intel, we developed a two-tier influencer strategy aimed at engaging both gamer goofs to provide levity and strategic masterminds to lend credibility.
Identifying the right influencers is tough, but getting them to produce meaningful content is even trickier. To help them make work that resonated, we crafted a strategy based on audience interests and platform behaviors: break through the noise by embracing the absurd and tapping into Youtube challenge culture.
The Execution
Our campaign generated over 100 pieces of content, produced by 19 influencers—including Twitch streamers to YouTube humorists to celebrity chefs and WWE superstars. Each influencer brought something different to the table—whether a ridiculous parody sketch or an hour-long strategy podcast, we activated across a massive scope of influencers to create a hugely diverse range of content with a hot sauce challenge twist.
In addition to giving influencers a creative way to engage with the game, our hot sauce also enabled us to partner with the popular YouTube show Hot Ones. For the first time ever, a brand was featured on the show not simply as a logo, but integrated into the content itself. Our sauce was sampled, discussed, and conquered by host Sean Evans and celebrity chef Eddie Huang. The campaign ran for seven weeks, activating across YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and an in-game event.
The Results
The campaign garnered over 8.6 million social impressions and over 228,000 engagements, with 90% positive sentiment. We had the third highest trending video on YouTube and became the #1 RPG in the app store.
Overall, the mix of influencers we selected helped us greatly surpass our goals for reach, engagement, and buzz. A total of 2.95MM views on YouTube (+54% over projected target), 28.1K social engagements (+70% over project target), and a click-through rate more than 9% above the benchmark.
Between views of the Hot Ones YouTube content and placements on social, Complex delivered impressions over and above the goal of 2MM. Moreover, Complex served an additional 1.54MM impressions in awareness, boosting content on other digital channels. Overall, our influencers drove 70% of the total launch buzz.