Promoting Genshin Impact on Russian YouTube, when it seemed the entire Russian game audience had already been reached

Client

Genshin Impact has repeatedly asked us for help in promoting game releases to the Russian-speaking audience. We received the first request from the client in November 2021. After that, our cooperation with Genshin Impact became regular.

Goal

The client set us the task of promoting the game through collaborations with Russian YouTube bloggers. But there was a slight nuance. Since each release of Genshin Impact was 1-1.5 months apart, we had to find Influencers and agree on collaborations with them in a short period of time. It was a kind of a challenge for RMAA, as each release had different technical specifications from the client and his expectations from the list of suitable bloggers also differed.

Work specifics

Before we discuss what we did for the client, let's talk briefly about the global promotion of Genshin Impact in the world.

According to the BuzzGuru platform, Genshin Impact got into the top 10 brands of 2022 that spent the largest budgets on YouTube promotion. In terms of numbers, we are talking about $12.1 million. At the same time, the number of advertising mentions reached the figure of 1,516. Non-advertising mentions of all kinds of YouTube bloggers of different formats and scales were about the similar number (1332).

At the beginning of cooperation with RMAA the client already had collaborations with the leading Russian YouTube Influencers in his list. And this was not just 2-3 channels, but almost all popular bloggers in the TOP Russia and CIS.

Despite Genshin Impact's rather "aggressive and impetuous" approach to YouTube buying, we managed to figure out how to impress the client, who was already hard to surprise with anything.
+ Achieve maximum reach from campaigns.
+ Deliver campaigns in a timely manner.

During the entire period of cooperation with Genshin Impact we managed to realize about 20 collaborations with YouTube bloggers within the framework of this project. The task was achievable thanks to our systematic work with the RMAA blogger database, which we constantly update and keep an eye on new "faces" in the Russian Internet space.

Solutions

The client asked for bloggers from different segments each time when a new version of the game was released. They were from PC and mobile games, cartoon and movie reviews, musicians, talk shows and even car tuning segments.

For example, Dalbek, a popular critic of cartoons and movies on Russian YouTube, talked about Genshin Impact. To be more precise, not only the blogger himself, but also the characters of the cartoon Encanto. According to the plot of the video, the main character Isabela dreams images from the game, but she does not understand why. And Dolores (note - another cartoon character) goes out of the frame and secretly tells the author of the channel about the new release of Genshin Impact. Then, Dalbek covers his adventures inside the world of Genshin in all colors and with humor.

At the beginning of the project, we tried to offer solutions confined to the client's requests. Then we expanded our search for attractive YouTube Influencers, whose content wouldn't seem to be connected with the game at all. But this is only at first glance. In realization, the collaborations turned out to be quite atypical for both us and the client. At the same time, they were not lower in the number of views and user engagement than videos on other channels, that were more relevant for the promotion of Genshin Impact.

How it actually turned out.

Campaign 1: Right on target - collaborations with gamers

One of the most successful collaborations for the client was with bloggers from the gaming segment. We offered different channels in terms of style and number of subscribers. They were Minecraft, streams, PC games. In a word, everything that’s related to gaming.

So, gamer FixEye talked about new features of Genshin Impact release, making a smooth transition between the main content of the channel to the game in the style of a Minecraft game.

In Dem channel, the release overview was presented by the main characters of the channel Bogdan and Sasha.

They described in detail to the audience how you can create your own fairy tale world in Genshin Impact. At the same time, they mentioned that the game is available on all PCs and mobile devices for free. A similar trend of reviewing fairy tale worlds was supported by MyNeosha in his video. The gamer showed subscribers his world created inside Genshin and introduced a new character from the latest release.

Gamer and streamer Velja has published an extended review of Genshin Impact, which lasted 5 minutes. He did it right in the process of a dialog with his colleague, gamer Roma Greez. Therefore, the advertising block was organically integrated into the main plot of the video.

The users appreciated Velya's detailed approach to the game's release. One of the viewers wrote a positive review of Genshin Impact in the comments to the video. He added that if he had not been familiar with the game before, he would have downloaded it for himself after the video.

Also, the release of Genshin Impact came up during a lively video discussion on the channel of streamer Yerox.

As a result, the videos of all gamers collected a large number of views and achieved a good rate of user engagement with the content.

Campaign 2. Popular bloggers for bigger reach

In order to increase the reach of the campaign, we couldn't avoid popular entertainment YouTube channels. Their main advantage is their large and diverse audience.

One of them was the channel of young star Viki Show, whose content is aimed at younger viewers. The blogger managed to integrate seamlessly the Genshin review into her video vlog, where she shows her non-boring everyday life, room tours, travels and other fun adventures.

Special attention should be paid to the collaboration with the Frost channel, a former gamer and currently a star of Russian YouTube. The creator of the channel, Yuri Mashtakov, approached the review of the game in a specific way. In his video, he played out a scene where two characters discuss the new release.

A minimum of shots from the game itself (which is unusual for the client integrations) and a maximum of discussion of the release in the dialog of the channel's heroes caused a strong reaction in the comments to the video. 580 likes at the mention of Genshin Impact is a bonus in addition to the large number of views.

Thus, collaborations with popular multimillion-dollar YouTube channels allowed us to expand the campaign's audience. But it wasn't enough for us. We wanted something more extraordinary for the client, especially after the video on the Frost channel.

Campaign 3. Out of the box - search for unconventional opinion leaders

At our own risk, we decided to move a bit away from the client's initial brief and search for interesting bloggers with unusual content.

As it turned out, there are also superstars among them with million audiences. For example, SlivkiShow, which occupies 6th place in the Russian YouTube ranking.

The channel's content is difficult to categorize into any genre or format. It combines scientific data, lifehacks, humor, experiments - all in one content unit.

The video containing the review of Genshin Impact was dedicated to the Canadian Army's dry packs and the question of whether you can survive 1 day in the woods with it. At first glance, the game's promotion and the subject matter were completely mismatched. However, the author didn't see this as a problem. Landscapes, where the video was shot were taken as a connecting point. After that, they were smoothly replaced by the scenery of the world of Genshin. As a result, +1 successful collaboration for the client.

Also, we offered the client another crazy idea - a collaboration with Kreosan, the content of whom is also difficult to describe in one phrase. In addition to various experiments, the channel's heroes are constantly traveling and getting into wild situations.

The review of the game came at the moment of the release of the video about Thailand. Spoiler: no one was hurt, the heroes returned home, and the release of Genshin fit perfectly into the dynamic video.

The experiments did not finish there. We arranged a collaboration with a specific travel blogger, Vitalik Ignatyuk. Vitalik's content is dedicated not just to traveling, but to various wilderness survival challenges. In one of the videos, the blogger found himself on a deserted island, where he decided to build a hut from handy tools. In between his work, Vitalik enjoys the views of wildlife, reminiscing about the beautiful graphics of Genshin Impact.

Also, the game's release was covered straight from Chernobyl. It was a collaboration with blogger Vlad Reznov, who shoots content in this alienated but famous and mysterious area. Vlad admitted to subscribers that in between hiking, exploring the area, and filming, he plays Genshin Impact. Therefore, he was happy to tell and show the game release while in the bunker.

Thanks to such "extreme" collaborations, we were able to reach a new audience for the client. However we were not given the task of going beyond the brief. But, as experts, we realized from the beginning that working "strictly according to the brief" is not enough. Especially if the client is a world celebrity in the game industry.

Results

During almost a year of joint work, we ensured the day-to-day promotion of Genshin Impact game's new releases.

The total number of views that the above-mentioned videos collected reached more than 15 million. At the same time, user engagement in the video content was at the level of 30-40%.

The largest number of viewers who watched the client collaboration was on the SlivkiShow channel - 4.6 million views. This turned out to be significant for us, as this author did not initially fall under the client's request. And it was an extraordinary choice, which we offered to the client along with other YouTube Influencers.

YouTube channels dedicated to gamification turned out to have the highest user engagement with content. MyNeosha reached 44% and Dem - 47%. This was the point, as these bloggers always have a higher share of potential users for the client.

In addition to KPIs that we fulfilled, or rather exceeded at 20-30%, we have established ourselves as an agency that is ready to provide interesting solutions for projects in a short period of time. That's why the client turned to us more than once and not only with the task of finding Influencers. But we will talk about this in another case study.