After a successful debut, King Features and Netflix wanted to build anticipation and excitement among the fanbase for its new animated series, The Cuphead Show!, before the next collection of episodes dropped on the streamer.
Fans loved the activations from season 1, including the gamified CupheadCountdown.com, and we knew they were eager to return to Inkwell Isles. They’d be up for any challenge and they’d work together as a fandom to celebrate the show and unlock new content.
A bridge campaign through Summer 2022’s new episode drop needed to level up with exclusive content + incentives to engage the fandom, reach new audiences and get fans talking about their excitement for the new season on social.
We put our heads together to hone in on two primary fan segments: gamers and animation lovers. We built our activation within a feedback loop of CARTOONS > GAMES > CARTOONS, and leveraged the GAMER > WATCHER and WATCHER > GAMER pipelines across all ages.
Step right up and Roll The Dice with everyone’s favorite game show host, King Dice!
We recreated the fan-favorite season 1 game show Roll The Dice from episode 5 as a live, social playable version.
But first, fans had to unlock it and we wanted to grow the show’s social footprint to make sure every fan would be excited for it. We primed the audience for our stunt using characters from the series and asking them to bring along their friends. When Stickler, the show’s main auditor of soul collection for the Devil in the Underworld, reported that his ledgers were off and he needed help, fans made sure not a single soul was left unaccounted for by tagging their friends in social comments. Once Sticklers’ ledgers were balanced and the Devil had collected enough souls, fans were rewarded with an invitation to attend the newly reinstated game show, Roll the Dice..
Fans celebrate the announcement that their favorite game show host would be returning for a special Roll the Dice broadcast simultaneously on YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch. Cuphead, the award-winning video game on which the tv series is based, is an all-ages brand with a wide audience of gaming and animation fans who also enjoy the adaptation. Fans were excited to see their favorite in-show game show transformed into a real-time interactive experience. And oh did they play along!
We took fans through 6 questions, ranging from simple to fandom-intel only. Fans chimed into the chat to answer, debate, discuss, and answer again, to see if they got it right! At intermission, we played the season 2 trailer to get everyone excited… and after question 6 the players successfully won Roll The Dice! As their reward, we immediately led fans to the “Mystery Prize Room” and played a never before seen clip from one of the new episodes, the ultimate prize! Fans went crazy in the chat and were now officially ready for the to view the next round of content in the series.
It was a win-win all around:
The game show streamed live on Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch simultaneously.
The activation trended on Twitter.
The 20-minute livestream generated more social engagements on The Cuphead Show! channels than the content dropped on premiere day of the first episode of the series.
The livestream saw a remarkable 100% engagement rate—every user who joined ended up participating in the fun.
The Cuphead Show’s social footprint grew nearly 10%.
Each stream gained viewers throughout the duration of the live show (when a drop off after 0:30 is typical)
