What the brand needed
Sea of Thieves, an exclusive game available only on Xbox and PC, launched in 2018. Despite the pirate title expanding vastly and improving over the last five years, potential players expressed that it was confusing or difficult to get into, slow-paced, and lacked content in general. We set out to subvert expectations and challenge these pain points head-on, with a comprehensive three-pronged plan that encouraged both new and lapsed fans to play the game, by positioning it as a ‘hidden treasure’ on Game Pass.
Our job was to re-frame why now is the time to dive into Sea of Thieves and encourage Game Pass subscribers to play the game.
Insights and execution
Sea of Thieves had recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, but Xbox fans had grumbled, and the game was struggling to cut through a noisy landscape in a year of stellar AAA releases. We used social listening to do a deep dive and highlight the title’s pain points and found that players said the game was confusing, didn’t know where to start, or tried it at launch, and never went back…
Our campaign was broken down into three pillars: hook – grab attention; line – drive engagement; and sinker – call to action. We took player complaints and used them to write a tight script full of jokes that dealt with the criticism by presenting proof points of the game’s evolution – tantalizing audiences with all-new content. We dug around in subreddits, scraped TikTok reactions, and rifled through years of Twitter conversations to find gold nuggets of insights to power our creativity.
For our hook, we enlisted the help of comedian Ellie Taylor (of Ted Lasso fame) to create a hot, humorous hero video, showing her reacting to gamer comments with hard-researched proof points and fresh gameplay as ammunition. We recruited four other international talents too, to create additional, locally relevant pieces for our markets in France, Germany, Brazil, and Mexico. By activating with global partners, we were able to run with one lead creative idea that was executed effectively and efficiently in multiple markets, with the right language and the right talent – all in a two-day back-to-back shoot.
Finally, social assets were created to take advantage of, and then sustain interest generated by the hero video. This line of content further showcased Sea of Thieves and its features in a fun, on-trend way, while the sinker pillar – owned channel communication in the form of mailers and more – drove fans to jump straight into the game.
The results
We made a five-year-old game go stratospheric again with cut-through content that garnered some of the best results of the year.
Ultimately, we were able to shift perceptions and sentiments surrounding Sea of Thieves. This, in turn, contributed to an increase in Sea of Thieves players thro
We made a five-year-old game go stratospheric again with cut-through content that garnered some of the best results of the year:
- 30+ million video views (across 5 languages)
- Sea of Thieves social mentions reached a new high of 300 per day.
- Social sentiment increased to a net positive of 35%.
Ultimately, we were able to shift perceptions and sentiments surrounding Sea of Thieves. This, in turn, contributed to an increase in Sea of Thieves players through Game Pass during the campaign period:
- +19.8% player uptake
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