In the weeks leading up to this year’s GDC, I was simultaneously making sure my calendar was up-to-date and I had all of my targets for this year’s GDC documented. However, I also was working on a very fun campaign idea with one of my partners, Plato. Since I was already attending GDC, I thought there might be an opportunity to capitalize on being at the event with a guerrilla marketing campaign.
Summary of Indie Wolverine:
My company, Indie Wolverine is a creative communication studio that supports video games. We frequently find ourselves working on guerrilla marketing campaigns as they are usually low-cost options and are really fun to put together. A postmortem of one of our older campaigns can be read here.
Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, it’s time to introduce the star of this postmortem.
Summary of Plato App:
The Plato app is a really fun social gaming platform built by the original creators of Yahoo! Games. All of Plato’s games are multiplayer and feature Live/Turn-Based modes, global matchmaking, and competitive leaderboards. The app is completely free with no in-app purchases or advertising. It’s available for both Android and iOS.
Since releasing in November 2017, Plato has eclipsed 2 million downloads.
The most recent game added to Plato is a Mafia-style game called Werewolf. It’s the first time ever that there’s been a mobile version of Werewolf that allows players to play together without having to be in the same physical space and it’s been the most popular game to play on Plato (over 500k games of Werewolf have been played on Plato).
The Campaign:
With all campaigns, we start with a goal. For this campaign, our goal was to test out the street team idea and see if it has legs for possible use at a future more consumer-focused event like PAX. With that in mind, we started focussing on the environment, the attendees and how we can create a campaign that makes sense for GDC attendees and doesn’t annoy them.
I should point out that this was my first ever GDC, which no doubt had an impact on our results.
After doing some initial research, I found some information on the Mafia party game Wikipedia page that goes over the history of Mafia-style games and how the Werewolf variant Mafia game has been played at major events like GDC as an ice-breaker exercise. I also found a great article on technode that describes how businesspeople in China use games like Werewolf for networking purposes. The post also quotes a famous Chinese saying that goes “first make friends, then talk business”.
This all started aligning perfectly and shaped the foundation of our plans for GDC. My thoughts were this:
- GDC is going to have 30k+ attendees, which definitely includes the media.
- Many attendees will be shy and introverted (myself included).
- If some attendees have already been exposed to the Werewolf game from GDCs of the past, then this should be a nice treat for them.
- Many YouTube videos on GDC tend to go over the events that aren’t advertised. The *super secret events that you find about while talking to a Blizzard employee in an alley somewhere near the Tenderloin District (obviously JK. Don’t even try.).
And finally
- I see many attendees complaining about how they don’t like to go to crowded parties and how they only get to see their friends one time a year.
With all the above being said, I wanted to put together a campaign that addressed a common pain point:
- Pain Point: Shy and introverted attendees who want to take a night off (any attendee for that matter), but feel like they might have missed out on networking opportunities.
Solution: These attendees could play Werewolf with other attendees through Plato (which has a real-time chat system built-in and a private messaging system) and still network with other attendees without having to be in the same physical space.
Going back to our goal, we wanted to make attendees aware of the fact that they can play Werewolf with other attendees and friends anywhere and anytime.
With that in mind, our plan was this:
Hire a street team to hand out exclusive-looking invitations to attendees that invite them to download Plato and play Werewolf with other attendees on their downtime.
The Fine Details:
To accomplish this, we did the following:
- Purchased 4 latex Werewolf Halloween masks on Amazon.
- Worked with a team that provides ambassadors for events like GDC.
- Purchased full wardrobe for 4 ambassadors.
- Purchased 4,000 business card-sized invitations through MOO (with a discount for purchasing in bulk)
The Werewolf masks were purchased on Amazon at roughly $50 per mask. The 4 ambassadors were provided through a local company for a very fair price and the wardrobe was purchased through Target and H&M (H&M ended up saving the day! More on that later.) and again, the business cards were purchased through MOO.com.
All in all, the total cost for all of this was very low and fit within our partner’s budget.
What Went Right
-
- Vision
The vision for this project was executed perfectly. We wanted each ambassador handing out invitations to be fun and not salesy. We also wanted them to be attention-grabbing, but not annoying.
With that being said, we think we balanced this nicely by having each ambassador wearing a Werewolf mask (for the Werewolf game), a dapper top (high-end party look) with pajama pants (a party that you can take part in anywhere. Even in your pajamas at your hotel/Airbnb).
Here’s a picture of the amazing team!
-
- Execution
The team of ambassadors couldn’t have been a better fit. They were all extremely outgoing, fun and were genuinely excited to put on the masks and hand out the invitations. Within 2 days, they handed out almost all of the 4,000 cards we ordered. They kept us up-to-date on how everything was going via text and they did a good job of not being too salesy to attendees (I lurked by a few times to see how they were doing and they were kicking ass).
After the first day, we all met and the team shared ideas on how to improve the effectiveness of how they communicate with attendees and were overall very engaged and productive.
-
- Awareness
We didn’t have a lot of installs, which we were prepared for and kind of expected (obviously would have been great to have had thousands of new installs), but almost everyone I spoke to about the campaign during the event mentioned they had noticed the Werewolves or had been approached by them, which was nice. Luckily it didn’t seem like anyone was annoyed by their presence, which is what we were aiming for.
What Went Wrong
-
- Results
Again, we didn’t get a ton of installs, which would have been nice. We also didn’t receive any coverage for the stunt, which would have also been nice, but we realized this was a possibility and this is always a possibility with guerrilla marketing campaigns. This is why you want to keep high-risk, high-reward campaign budgets to a minimum.
-
- Preparation and Organization
While I put together a budget before the event, I didn’t purchase any of the wardrobes before flying out, which put me in a bind to find all the correct attire for the ambassadors (we weren’t provided sizes from the company providing the ambassadors until a couple of days before the campaign began). I also didn’t check the weather forecast frequently enough. I checked it a few weeks out and thought it was okay, but as the event got closer, it became clear it was going to rain and for a campaign that’s run outside, the weather is a major factor. All in all, we got very lucky and everything came through and worked out fine, but it could have gone really bad really fast.
-
- Management
I was in charge of managing the ambassadors and I feel like I should have been a bit more stern with them as time was wasted. We booked 4 ambassadors for 2 days from 10 AM to 2 PM. I met with the team at 10 AM (the time they should have already been out handing out invitations), which led to the team not handing out flyers until at least 10:30 AM and when I would go back to our meetup spot (Starbucks) at around 1:30 – 1:40, a few of the team members were already there waiting. This resulted in time lost (potentially 1 hour per person per day).
After the first day, I should have made a point that this shouldn’t happen again on the second day, but I didn’t push the issue and it happened again. On the second day, one of the team members even told me they accepted another job that started at 2 PM, so they had to leave early. Again, this led to another day of an hour loss. I don’t believe it had any effect on the results of the campaign, but it was something I noticed and is something I need to improve on the next time I manage a street team.
Where we Got Lucky
-
- Shipping
We ordered the Werewolf masks a bit too close to my flight. The shipping estimate was for the day after I was leaving for San Francisco and the destination was my house in North Carolina. Luckily, the masks shipped from a shipping center in Charlotte, NC, so they arrived very early, which allowed us to air out the masks (latex masks have a terrible smell to them) and make modifications to the masks, so the ambassadors could see better from them.
We also ordered the 4,000 business card invitations from MOO at the last moment (during a snowstorm). It was so bad that my original account manager couldn’t call me on the day I placed the order because he was snowed in and lost electricity. However, MOO upgraded us to next day shipping for free, which was amazing!
-
- Clothes
I went shopping for the Werewolf wardrobes a day before the campaign was to start (campaign ran on Wednesday and Thursday). I thought Target would have everything I needed (4 vests, 4 button-up shirts, 4 ties, and 4 pajama pants). However, they didn’t have everything and even when they had something we needed, it was either in the wrong size, or they only had one left, so I had to buy what I could and move on to other stores.
After leaving Target, I went to Macy’s, Express and then H&M. Keep in mind this was about 30 minutes before all of these stores were due to close, so I was scrambling and it was raining outside, so I was running into stores like a crazy person wet asking where to find women’s clothing.
I was able to find everything that I needed at H&M (they were ridiculously helpful). They even threw in a 25% off discount on my order (again, H&M is the bomb. If there’s one thing to take from this postmortem, it’s that H&M is the bomb).
-
- Sizing
After purchasing everything, I started to feel anxiety about clothing sizes. I was scheduled to meet with the street team at 10 AM the following day (again, this was supposed to be the start time of the campaign) and if any of the clothes didn’t fit, I would lose team members for a substantial amount of time until I could find clothes to fit them. Luckily, all the clothes fit perfectly!
The team was very comfortable with the clothes and it was fun watching people in Starbucks taking photos and asking the ambassadors why they were wearing Werewolf masks and pajama pants.
What We Learned
There are many things that we learned from this campaign and now you get to benefit from it for free 🙂
- For the duration of GDC, we created a chat room in the Plato app for GDC attendees. However, we weren’t able to password protect the room (not enough time) and we left the room open 24 hours. There were many people joining the room that used the app that wasn’t at GDC who were confused by the room name and frequently asked “What is this room?” or “What is GDC?”. Also, because the room was open all day, anyone who would want to try out Werewolf and join the room would be met with people not at the event and not many people in general. When you don’t control the time period of something like this, you will mostly be met with a dead room or room that has a low active player count, which isn’t very inviting to people that want to check it out.
- I hadn’t been to GDC before this year and because of this, I simply couldn’t grasp the amount of stuff there is to do throughout the week. There literally isn’t enough time in the day to do everything you want to do. You have meetings, talks to attend, the expo floor to explore, parties and other events all week long. The last thing you’re going to do is pull out that card a Werewolf handed you and download an app you’ve never heard of before. If we were to do something like this again for GDC, I would recommend doing something that makes a statement or doesn’t require a lot from the attendee, rather than making attendees do something on top of everything else they have to do during the week of GDC.
- If you plan on doing any outside campaign at any event, always check the weather. Again, we got very lucky, but if it rained hard, the campaign would have been DOA and we would have wasted time and money putting everything together. This is why we prefer digital guerrilla marketing as the weather isn’t normally a major factor and you can keep costs even lower than an outdoor event.
Conclusion
We didn’t change the world with this campaign, but that wasn’t our goal. We learned a lot by attending GDC and managing this type of campaign and we have the perfect partners in Plato to do this.
I’ve added some pictures below from the campaign. It was a ton of fun and if you were at GDC and met one of our Werewolves, please let us know in the comment section below.
Pictures!
