The Call of Duty Endowment was founded to give back meaningfully to the real-life heroes that inspire the game Call of Duty. The mission of the Endowment is to help U.S. and U.K. veterans find high-quality employment after military service, and to raise awareness of the value veterans bring to the workplace.
To celebrate Military Appreciation Month this year, the Call of Duty Endowment wanted to raise funds and awareness for their mission amongst Call of Duty players. Since November - Veterans Day - has become a saturated space with more than 40,000 U.S. nonprofits activating, the Endowment strives to own Military Appreciation Month by developing creative campaigns that reach target audiences.
This May, in honor of Military Appreciation Month, the Call of Duty Endowment launched the Got Your Six Challenge to raise funds and awareness to ensure veterans know we’ve got their six when it comes to landing high-quality civilian careers.. The goal of the campaign was to engage players in a fun and engaging way, while creating awareness and funds for the cause. Players were able to participate by completing various in-game challenges in Call of Duty®: Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty: Warzone™ to earn free cosmetic rewards and support the Endowment's cause. The event also featured a series of tiers, with each tier requiring the completion of at least one challenge to unlock the corresponding reward.
To launch the campaign, the team developed a multi faceted strategy and execution plan to raise funds and awareness for the cause, with the additions of the all new Tracker Pack and partnership with music superstar Kane Brown.
Every year for Military Appreciation Month, Call Of Duty also celebrates with a new Call Of Duty Endowment pack, with 100% of net proceeds from these bundles going to the Endowment. This year it was The Call of Duty Endowment (C.O.D.E.) United Force: Tracer Pack, the first Endowment pack inspired by two real-life veterans: First Sergeant (Ret.) Korey Staley and Captain (Ret.) Florent “Flo” Groberg (Medal of Honor recipient and inspiration for the C.O.D.E Fearless Pack in Modern Warfare).
In addition to this, The Call of Duty Endowment and country music superstar Kane Brown challenged players to win for veterans. In celebration of the Endowment’s 15th anniversary, C.O.D.E and Kane Brown challenged the community to collectively reach 15 million Multiplayer wins, Call of Duty: Warzone wins, and Zombie extractions between May 9 and May 14. If the community reached 15 million wins across game modes, players would unlock the “KB High Road” Calling Card, inspired by Kane’s High Road Tour.
Through in-game pack sales and the in-game challenge, the Endowment raised $1.6M in-game and had more than 72M Got Your Six Challenge completions and 20K USAA packs redeemed, making it our most successful Military Appreciation Month launch in Endowment history. The events helped fund the placement of 2,536 veterans into high-quality jobs. The team also made sure to maximize awareness and engagement with the Call of Duty and veteran supporter community through innovative creative campaigns, reaching 3.6M impressions.
This year’s Military Appreciation month campaigns gave fans the opportunity to directly support veterans by doing what they love - playing the game. This initiative was not only fun but helped engage the Call of Duty community in the Endowment’s work to place more veterans into high-quality jobs.