Call of Duty: Black Ops II DLC Drop

In November we helped Activision launch Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the biggest selling entertainment product of all time. Sometimes when you launch a product the work ends there – in the world of gaming, the mission has only just begun.

With the evolution of gaming online, publishers are now looking to keep the momentum alive with what is known as DLC – downloadable content. DLC allows gamers to take their gaming experience and inject it with new life. Revolution, the first Black Ops II DLC drop in 2013 gives players access to four new maps, a new weapon – The Peacekeeper, and for the first time ever they can play their favourite game as a Zombie.

To help Activision get their core gaming audience excited about the January 30^th Revolution launch on Xbox360, we engaged one of Australia’s most influential gamers, a man by the name of Champ Chong.

Champ Chong is an online oracle for Aussie gamers, an expert gamer with all the latest news, reviews and developments in the gaming world. Champ Chong loves the Call of Duty franchise, and jumped at the chance to help get the word out about Revolution.

With 300,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel we took our announcement and bought it life for his army of viewers. Working With Champ Chong we organised a special FX makeup expert to transform him into a Zombie for his show. The clip looked awesome, and as you’d expect things got a little messy.

View CLIP: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChampChong

Over 58 thousand viewers and counting have checked out the clip, and Champ Chong has posted regular updates on both his Facebook page (14,526 fans) as well as his Twitter handle (26,767 followers). The activity was a way to get news of the DLC drop to the game’s core audience in a fun, compelling way – and the results speak for themselves.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Challenge: Call of Duty is the biggest selling entertainment franchise of all time.

To continue the success of the gaming phenomenon, Activision engaged Pulse Communications to help launch its latest release, the ninth installment in the franchise Call of Duty: Black Ops II into the Australian market.

Q4 is the busiest time in the gaming calendar and the challenge was to ensure that we generated a high level of anticipation about Call of Duty: Black Ops II  and effectively communicate to consumers why they should purchase this game above all others in market. We needed to drive home that this was a bigger and better game than its predecessors and competitors.

Strategy: The gaming community were key in driving early buzz around the game. They are our core audience so we hosted an exclusive event to give our top 50 AU players the chance to play the game before anyone else.

Celebrity influencers were also important in spreading the excitement of Black Ops II. Pro rugby players like Quade Cooper and Karmichael Hunt, musicians like Ronan Keating and Guy Sebastian received early delivery of the game which lead to them driving conversation ahead of the release within their fan base.

We also hosted AU media at several press events in Los Angeles throughout 2012 to secure front cover features which gave fans their first look analysis of the new game.

Results: We landed front covers across the main gaming magazines. We generated mainstream news stories off the back of nationwide midnight store launches at EB Games including a prime time news feature on Sam Worthington’s role in the game on Today Show.

We generated mass conversation through social media channels and drove early talkability of the game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II set a new entertainment record by making $1 billion in just 15 days.