Call of Duty: What If - a hyper targeted campaign

Console gamers are a massive audience yet extremely difficult to reach with traditional advertising. These are predominantly male, generation x and y’s are cable cutters, 75% subscribing to a non-advertising service and a nearly 60% utilizing ad-blockers (source: Orvesto 2020).

So how then do you advertise a console game such as the new “Call of Duty – Cold War” that launches today?

Branded content, social, influencers and gaming sites are proven tools to reach this audience, but gaming as a communication channel is much under-utilised. In-game advertising in particular is a much under-utilised channel. However, gamers are hyper sensitive to advertising in their “enjoyment space”. Standard push advertising in this environment is likely to have an even worse effect as an advert in the 89th minute of the football final. In-game advertising such as Adverty’s “In-Play” format allowed Activision to reach gamers in the perfect context, allowing gamers to stumble upon and explore the communication and they are playing live. It’s not only good advertising but it adds to, rather than detracting from the experience. The campaign has met with a warm response and lively conversation in the games and on social media.

Creatively the audience also is primed to know what to expect from gaming launch communications… big budget videos, non-stop actions and explosions but rarely they give the audience a reason to stop and need a second take or pause for thought.

The “What If” creative concept explains the fact that during the Cold War, a Soviet invasion of the Nordic countries was never far away. Most young people of today are not well-informed of what the Cold War meant to the Nordics and what was at stake.

So, what if history unfolded a bit different? How would the world look like? This thought was put through its paces to create puzzling and amusing memes of famous Nordic icons – such as the Swedish Dalahorse, the Norwegian Lusekofte and Danish Smørrebrød.

The “USSR:ified” in-game memes will lay the foundation for what the Cold War was – a conflict between the West and the East – and what the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will bring to the world.