In order to drive pre-orders of the latest expansion in the popular Destiny video game series, Activision sought to create maximum awareness and engagement ahead of the game's highly-anticipated launch. Activision looked to digital media, including search marketing with a particular focus on social media to:
- Bring consumers live action game trailers and exclusive game play footage through various diverse ad units
- Retarget audiences to drive pre-orders and balanced performance with broader interest-based audiences such as technophiles and hardcore gamers in order to drive awareness and influence consideration
Targeting an audience comprised of core users who interacted with the brand previously and/or are fans of the franchise, along with reaching similar broader audiences either in-market or potentially interested in the video game, Activision looked to digital media, leveraging paid search and social on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube to bring consumers live action game trailers and exclusive game play footage through assorted ad units.
To reach the intended audience at scale, Activision partnered with Resolution Media and OMD to develop a fully-integrated multi-platform advertising and targeting strategy utilizing advanced targeting and audience segmentation across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube and search.
To effectively execute this strategy, Resolution Media:
- Identified and captured the top-rated search terms on Google to deliver increased impressions and clicks
- Leveraged Lookalike Audiences via Facebook targeting through Native Video, Canvas and Image Link Ads
- Targeted page fans, lookalikes and interest audiences via Facebook and Instagram based off past interactions with content, and developed a sequential messaging strategy to connect with users at different stages of their purchase journey to further reinforce impact
- Utilized Snapchat's long-form video and 'top snap' features to deliver an increased swipe-up rate and average view time
- Utilized conversational keyword targeting to capture audiences engaged in E3 dialogue (a prominent gaming convention) to strengthen demand capture and capitalize on overall event buzz
- Focused on retargeting audiences to drive pre-orders and balanced performance with broader interest based audiences such as technophiles and hardcore gamers
Activision made its Destiny: Rise of Iron assets unavoidable to its target audience, generating 19.4MM total impressions and 156K clicks across all utilized channels.
Additional individual channel results include:
Search
- Captured 732K impressions and drove nearly 77K clicks to the landing page with >99% share of voice (SOV) on core brand terms
- Click-through rate (CTR) improved 30% YoY
Facebook
- Native Video player drove more than 5M views, a 21% view-through-rate (VTR) and efficient $0.02 cost per view (CPV) (-60% YoY compared to The Taken King campaign)
- A 7x lift in engagement rate among core audiences via native video
- Canvas unit delivered 13M impressions and more than 73K link clicks with averages of 54% of Canvas viewed and 28s duration
- Image Link ads drove 2.7M impressions and over 46K link clicks at a strong 1.67% CTR and efficient $0.43 cost per click (CPC)
Instagram
- Native video player delivered more than 870K views at a 20% VTR and $0.03 CPV
- Instagram Carousel unit drove more than 2M impressions and 36K link clicks at a 1.23% CTR with a strong 3.68% engagement rate
- Carousel unit drove a 8% engagement rate among users who completed the video asset
Snapchat
- Delivered more than 1.8M views with a swipe-up rate of 4.64%
- 39.18s long-form video average view time, 4x higher than industry average duration
Twitter
- 30% VTR across campaigns and more than 15K clicks to site
YouTube
- Drove more than 1.8M views at a 17% VTR and $0.04 CPV
- 3x lift in view completion rate (VCR) YoY
