SNIPER ELITE 3 – 505 GAMES
Challenge:
How can we garner awareness, achieve record sales, and prove that Sniper Elite 3 is genuinely a Triple A title in such a saturated market?
Solution:
Our solution was to develop a campaign that was everything but traditional. From research and focus groups, we knew that influence in this sector was diminishing within traditional media. As a result, we took a single-minded approach focusing the core press office campaign on gaming YouTubers and bloggers.
Hosted a hands-on event for 20+ key influencers allowing us a captive audience for trial. Provided an engaging and film friendly set up, encouraging these influencers to capture video content for direct use on their own online channels.
Engaged Charlie Brooker, who was a self-confessed fan of the first Sniper game, and invited him to the studio to see it first… and to star in it! Content created with Charlie was offered to consumers as a pre-order incentive, creating a huge buzz in the industry with national news coverage, and record pre-order numbers.
Results:
Generated over 8m views of the Sniper Elite 3 influencer content on YouTube in just one week. Due to the strategic programme, the game went on to smash the charts, hit No. 1 and stayed there for a fortnight.
Impact:
Changing the model from traditional to digital, creating content that was used as an incentive to drive purchases, whilst engaging the true opinion formers to enable a small publisher to beat the giants.