Gaming is booming, and it’s only going to get bigger in the next few years.
But with new games, platforms, and even gambling, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd as everyone fights for player time and attention. We need to outplay the competition.
At BSSP we take an outside look at your business to ensure every touchpoint is engaging new players, growing daily/monthly active users, and driving our biggest fans to generate content and reviews. Check out some of our work, where we show how we’ve been outplaying the competition for the past 10 years.
Evony
THE KINGS RETURN
Evony is a strategy game with its roots in PC gaming. But with everything going mobile, they found a new way to drive sales by relaunching their game on mobile.
You know what’s interesting? Some of the most famous people in the world acting out gameplay battles on camera. With the help of Aaron Eckhart as George Washington, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as King Arthur and one of China’s biggest stars, Fan Bingbing as Empress Wu, we helped them fight through the crowded mobile gaming space.
Three days after the first commercial was released, app installs had increased by a factor of four. The game catapulted from unranked to one of the top 5 games in the iTunes App Store within one week.
NBA 2K
THEY WILL KNOW YOUR NAME
Over the last 20 years, the NBA 2K franchise has steadily built a loyal following of sports gamers, edging out more well-funded competitors. As they began to reach a saturation point among their core audience, they wanted to draw more casual gamers and basketball fans into the franchise while continuing to strengthen their core. With the introduction of a new open-world concept called “The Neighborhood,” NBA2K finally stepped outside the confines of the basketball court. Our challenge was to help the brand take a similar step—from basketball icon to cultural icon.
We helped NBA 2K identify a new consumer target representing the 20 million-plus gamers living outside their core. Their passion for basketball is an extension of their overall creative identity. They don’t play video games to pretend to be someone else but rather to be a better version of themselves.
Behind every name is a narrative that shapes its legacy. In anticipation of the 20th-anniversary release of NBA 2K19, we created a campaign that empowered gamers to craft their own legacies and make their names known to all.
Activision Blizzard
THE BRAIN’S LAST STAND
Hearthstone is a digital card game where players use strategic thinking to outsmart and outplay their opponent. The game has garnered enormous popularity within the gaming community since its launch in 2014, but we wanted to dispel any fear of exclusivity, and demonstrate that it’s a game for everyone to enjoy.
To do so, we offered Chess Grandmaster and former World Champion Garry Kasparov a chance for redemption against the machine…only this time, he’d be playing Hearthstone instead of chess. We taught Garry the game, got him hooked, and then put him against the ultimate challenge. Our mini-documentary, The Brain’s Last Stand, captures every step of Garry’s journey playing Hearthstone.
NBA 2K
WELCOME TO THE NEXT
NBA 2K isn’t a basketball game; it’s a platform for gamers, hoopers and tastemakers to come together and create what’s next in culture. Our challenge was to rise above the video game category to put the 2K franchise at the center of basketball and popular culture.
Basketball gets interesting when you realize that it is where culture collides—unlike many other sports, it influences everything from fashion to music to art. It’s where what’s next is always on display—and not just for the game.
For NBA 2K20, we created a campaign featuring an array of next makers currently crafting culture. Starting with cover athletes Anthony Davis, possibly the next NBA champion, and Dwyane Wade, the next NBA legend, we created game covers that told their stories through easter eggs from their past and future.
ESPN
GO WITH YOUR GUT
Every year, millions of fans turn to ESPN to curate their brackets for the largest college basketball tournament in the U.S. No matter your knowledge of the sport, everyone makes their picks and holds their breath. Correctly filling out a bracket can seem daunting, especially to casual fans. So this year, ESPN is encouraging everyone to trust their instincts and “go with your gut!” In a new integrated campaign for its annual Tournament Challenge bracket game ESPN is launching three new spots ahead of the men’s and women’s brackets selection on Sunday, March 12th where the brand plays into the uncertainty, madness and chaos surrounding brackets and team seeding.
The new spots highlight how, when it comes to the tournament, anything can happen. Like top seeds losing early or underdogs going all the way, there is no surefire way of predicting the outcome.
Ready to hit play? Reach out to our gaming account director Kyle to learn about our Outplay Actionable Audit. 4 Weeks. 20K for an audit of where you’ve been and 2 audacious activations we believe can maximize your impact this year.
