The War Within
World of Warcraft. UK & Nordics
Reaching outside the WoW echo chamber through crossover creators
Instagram. TikTok. Twitch. YouTube Shorts.
The Brief
World of Warcraft challenged us to raise awareness and purchase intent for their new “War Within” expansion pack in the UK and Nordics.
The Insight
Gaming content is huge on social. But Goat wanted to look outside of the gaming niche to avoid speaking to an echo chamber of existing World of Warcraft fans. Using our data tool, Ibex, we identified common crossover niches and content creators that could speak to active gamers and lapsed gamers.
The Approach
We identified 10 influencers across cosplay, arts & crafts, gaming, STEM, toy design and music. These included @MissMikkaa and @Strippin (Twitch streamers/gamers), @Nerdforge (art creator), and @JamesBruton (STEM creator and former toy designer).
We then briefed them in a three-phased approach. The first phase needed to drive awareness of War Within, with a theme being Xal’atath tempting our creators to join her side – for any non-WoW fans, Xal’atath is “an ancient and malevolent being of the Void, able to manifest in any form she chooses“).
The second phase would then showcase The War Within natively within their style of content, and the third phase culminated in a Collector’s Edition giveaway orchestrated by the creators through their social media channels.
We had such a variety of scroll-stopping content across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram and Twitch, from Nerdforge challenging herself to paint two paintings on one canvas, to Littlejem creating an electronic “Dark Heart”.
The Results
The content resonated incredibly well with audiences and our creators delivered an incredible 631,000 engagements. Best of all, we had a 90% positive sentiment rate across the content, with comments like “That’s how advertising should be done” and “If all advertising was like this, I’d be broke“.
The success of the campaign was recognized with two industry award nominations for Best Gaming Campaign; The Shorty Awards and The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA.
