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 #CODEUAVChallenge to raise funds and awareness for the Endowment’s mission of high-quality job placements for veterans. The goal of the campaigns was to engage players in a fun and engaging way, while creating awareness and funds for the cause. Players were able purchase two all new packs in the game and earn in-game rewards and support veterans by participating in the U Assist Veterans Challenge, presented by USAA, completing challenges across Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® III (Multiplayer and Zombies) and Call of Duty: Warzone™. While facing these objectives, players helped allocate funds for the Call of Duty Endowment by calling in UAVs.
To launch the campaign, the team developed a multi faceted strategy and execution plan to raise funds and awareness for the cause. Innovation was key to the team's approach, as we continuously seek new strategies to enhance impact and player experience
Every year for Military Appreciation Month, Call Of Duty celebrates with a new Call Of Duty Endowment pack, with 100% of net proceeds from these bundles going to the Endowment. This year there were two packs for players to choose from - The C.O.D.E. Knight Recon Tracer Pack available in Modern Warfare III, Warzone and Warzone Mobile, and the C.O.D.E. Regulator Pack available in Call of Duty: Mobile.
In addition to this, a special “U Assist Veterans” challenge was implemented between May 8 and May 22, in collaboration with the USAA, where players could call in 5 UAVs within a Call of Duty match, unlocking $1 towards a $1M donation from Activision to the Endowment’s mission.
Lastly, Activision also revealed the largest single donation to the Call Of Duty Endowment from Citadel and Griffin Catalyst CEO and Founder Kenneth C. Griffin. The $2.5 million donation will help support job placement for over 4,000 veterans according to the game publisher.
Through in-game pack sales and the in-game challenge, we raised more funds for veterans than any previous Military Appreciation Month, making it our most successful Military Appreciation Month launch in Endowment history helping to fund the placement of 3,333 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 7.5 million impressions, 2.4 million video views, and 798K engagements. This was up over 96 % in impressions, over 1281% in engagements and over 120 % in video views from last year’s Military Appreciation month activations.
Additionally, to promote the UAV challenge, we partnered with USAA and Call of Duty creator, JoeWo, to produce a branded livestream. JoeWo’s stream rallied his community to call in UAVs to support the program while a lucky few were rewarded with free in-game content.
Endowment awareness increased significantly in May since the previous consumer insights wave in April (58%) and is tied with its all-time high (65%) since Military Appreciation Month 2022. Awareness amongst COD players that the Endowment helps veterans also increased to its highest point in the current game’s era and second highest point ever.
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.
