In the lead up to the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the franchise was facing challenging sentiment from the community. With new rising stars entering the conversation, Call of Duty had to remind their audience of what they loved most about the franchise.
The launch of the public Beta was the perfect opportunity to drum up hype, and change the narrative. A game’s Beta period gives some fans early access to the game. It’s when creators, streamers and fans finally get their hands on the game before its release. If Beta gets ignored, so will the game.
For Black Ops 7, the Beta wasn't just a Beta. It was the make-or-break moment to prove this game mattered. Weeks before launch, this was the shot to turn casual interest into can't-miss hype.
The Challenge: Hype players up for Black Ops 7 Beta by distributing exclusive Beta codes to the COD Community in unique and unexpected ways, get players clamoring for a code, and a chance to play the game. Turn the start of the Beta into a real moment for the community.
Call of Duty releases a Beta every year, so what made this year different? Thankfully, COD had something special up their sleeves - For the first time ever, the fan-favorite Zombies mode would be included in the Beta.
The Strategy: Capitalize on an iconic character’s return to Black Ops and celebrate Zombies first ever debut in Beta with a live stream format that builds excitement and FOMO.
Coming off the heels of the yearly COD Next event, fans on Twitch tuned in to see T.E.D.D., an iconic character from Black Ops 2 Zombies, make his epic return. But this wasn’t just simple animation or CG, this mechanically superior lifeform was ripped out of the game and was recreated from the bolts up. A working, speaking animatronic, who was ready to dish out 3 hours of straight Beta Codes to thousands of fans.
Set within a scenic treatment reminiscent of Vandorn Farm, a hellscape setting within The Dark Aether, players had to listen closely as T.E.D.D. (voiced by acclaimed VA Nolan North) went into his demonic “Beta Code Protocol” dishing out code after code.
The 3 hour stream was promoted on both X and IG via a series of posts running the day before, day of, and day after the stream.
To keep things fresh in between stints of codes, T.E.D.D. would entertain viewers with wisecracks, real-time engagement, extra code drops directly in chat, and in-game intel for their upcoming battles against the undead. delivering excitement and codes for every delicate ding dong that came to see him.
T.E.D.D. was a big hit — building huge hype for Zombies’ epic entry into COD Beta.
The stream saw over 125,000 Unique Viewers - the majority of which were not pre-existing Twitch followers.
In addition to driving strong viewership on Twitch, the promotional posts drove nearly 750,000 in added reach on social, seeing performance at or above benchmarks per platform. Social Listening mentions were up 28% over the previous year’s Beta.
The strong gameplay and livestream activations shined through, giving Beta a boost in volume on social and buoying sentiment to remain in the green.
