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.
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 to raise funds and awareness for their mission amongst Call of Duty players.
This May, the Endowment’s Military Appreciation Month campaign included a three-pronged approach. First, the Call of Duty Endowment (C.O.D.E.) United Force: Tracer Pack to raise funds in-game. Second, the Got Your Six Challenge to ensure veterans know we’ve got their six when it comes to landing high-quality civilian careers. Third, robust partner activations to keep players and donors engaged around impact throughout the month.
Each of these components was launched in parallel to a 360-marketing campaign across platforms where players live. This approach helped us surpass our goals of captivating players in a fun and compelling way, while raising awareness and funds for veteran employment. Through in-game pack sales, the Endowment raised $1.6M in-game and 20K USAA packs redeemed, making it our most successful Military Appreciation Month launch in Endowment history.
To launch the campaign, the team developed a multi-faceted strategy and execution plan to raise funds and awareness for the cause.
Every year for Military Appreciation Month, Call of Duty also celebrates with a new 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).
Additionally, players were able to participate by completing Call of Duty Endowment Got Your Six Challenge 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.
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, the Endowment 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.
The key to our success was cross-functional collaboration to bring this campaign to life. We were able to improve and refine our processes and build strong relationships with each department, which allowed us to integrate the Endowment's key messaging across all available channels, including social media, in-game messages, blog, and email. We held consistent meetings, presented on company-wide cross-functional calls, and had regular check-ins. Due to a subsequent in-game event being delayed, two weeks before the campaign launched, we had to change campaign launch dates to accomodate. We decided to extend our in-game challenge by one week to account for these changes. In response, we leveraged our strong internal relationships and content plans to extend our messaging accordingly to prevent player fatigue.
Through all these activations, the Endowment gave fans the opportunity to directly support veterans by doing what they love - playing Call of Duty. These initiatives were not only fun, but helped engage the Call of Duty community in the Endowment’s work to place more veterans into high-quality jobs.
The Endowment raised $1.6M in-game through in-game pack sales 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 communities through innovative creative campaigns, reaching 3.6M impressions. Coverage for the activation was included in several prominent publications including Variety, GameRant, VentureBeat, Gamespot, GamingTrend and more.
The Endowment’s Military Appreciation Month campaign was both entertaining and impactful, fostering deeper engagement within the Call of Duty community while advancing the Endowment’s mission to help more veterans secure high-quality employment.