How we grew the audience of an online game with the help of famous video bloggers
To maintain the number of active players and attract new audience.
Background
Drakensang is an online game made by Bigpoint GmbH, a German video game developer. The company develops stand-alone browser-based games and social network games. Bigpoint runs a gaming portal with a number of browser-based massively multiplayer online role-playing games, with over 200 million registered users.
Goal
To maintain the number of active players and attract a new audience.
Solution
Russian gamers have known browser-based Drakensang for quite a while, which is why RMAA Group’s task was to increase brand awareness and loyalty of the Russian audience.
To attract new players, we chose promotion channels that had not been used before. We proposed to our client to place ads in two magazines for gamers, namely Igromania and Strana Igr (Rus. Game Land), TV ads (federal advertising on MTV [now Pyatnitsa! TV channel, Rus. Friday! ] and A-One cable channel [ads in game reviews]), and to use viral marketing. As for SMM, SEO, and media context ads, the client handled them through its own marketing department, while our team focused on the viral component.
We use the popular Let’s Play format, where a user documents a game's playthrough and adds commentary. This format is popular among the Drakensang target audience. We organized a contest between popular Russian bloggers and launched a viral marketing campaign. Showmen from Mne Nravitsya (Rus. I Like It) and Sam Nickel, a video blogger, were playing Drakensang at unusual places—in a bathroom, in a night forest—and leveling up their characters. A blogger who would have a character of the highest level would win.
The gaming process and participants’ relationships were videotaped. Then the videos were published on YouTube and spread on social media.
Results
One of the goals of the viral campaign was to generate 300,000 views for each of the five videos. We accomplished this goal and generated 1.5 million views. We kept existing players engaged and attracted 2,500 new active users.
RMAA Group has been a great partner for our campaign. Our collaboration with RMAA Group has enabled us to enter new territories, gather valuable intelligence on emerging marketing channels, and attract new audiences. RMAA Group`s team has been a great partner for our campaign, and we look forward to working with them again
