Case Study: Splinter Cell’s Mobile Campaign

We recently worked with Ubisoft on an innovative digital campaign around its tentpole action game, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction.  The engagement initiative was one of the first interactive campaigns to use mobile as a means of giving away free in-game content to players.

When gamers texted WEAPON to 44144, they received a text back with a code to unlock a secret weapon in the game.

On the first day of the program, the company nearly doubled its mobile subscriber list by simply pushing out the information to its social media lists and gamer community.  80 percent of those that opted-in to the mobile list have remained on board for future updates and promotions.

Two weeks after the launch of the game, the mobile subscriber list was up more than 400 percent.  The video game publisher and developer experienced an amazing redemption rate for the in-game weapon.

Ubisoft did an excellent job of engaging its consumers, and the campaign was so successful the company decided to use mobile with future game releases, including Prince of Persia.

You can download the full case study here.

We Love Video Games!

A few weeks ago we highlighted an innovative digital campaign around Tom Clancy’s “Splinter Cell: Conviction” that Waterfall Mobile powered for our clients at Ubisoft – a campaign, by the way, that was extremely successful. The “Splinter Cell” initiative was one of the first interactive campaigns to use mobile as a means of giving away free in-game content to players.

The games publisher recently launched another mobile campaign this time for “The Forgotten Sands,” the latest installment of its “Prince of Persia” franchise. Gamers can text PRINCE to 44144 to receive a free skin of the Prince’s brother, Malik (Standard message and data rates may apply). The campaign has already snagged the attention of top video game news sites like Kotaku and Gaming Today.

As with the “Splinter Cell” campaign, Ubisoft is once again rewarding its loyal customers by providing them with exclusive in-game content for free. And its customers are returning the favor by further engaging with the brand.

It’s very exciting for us to be a part of these campaigns for many reasons.

First, we love to see people giving customers content they want in a way that really helps a brand engage its loyal consumers.

Second, because – as you know or could probably guess – the video game industry’s traditional targets are people that love technology. Campaigns aimed at tech-savvy audiences have been translating to significant mobile engagement. We love to see that!

And last but not least, GamesBeat recently estimated the video game industry to hit $70 billion a year by 2015, with growth of 16 percent over the next five years. (The report credits the increase to the growth in console, portable, PC and online video games). That’s exciting news, and we really look forward to helping companies in the interactive industry connect with consumers as the business continues to grow.

Good Games and Good Campaigns

Two things we love – Good games and good campaigns (not to mention good consumer engagement).

We also love to point out people and companies that are doing cool things in mobile and social media – and of course it’s even better when one of those innovative companies is a Waterfall Mobile client.

Video game publisher and developer Ubisoft came up with an innovative digital campaign around Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction.  It’s one of the first interactive campaigns to use mobile as a means of giving away free in-game content to players.  Since that exclusive content is just a text away, this is a great way to engage with consumers and build a mobile subscriber list.

When gamers text WEAPON to 44144*, they receive a text back with a code to unlock a secret weapon in the game.  We won’t tell you what it is – you have to text in to get it – but you won’t want to miss it.

Ubisoft let its gamer community know about the game code by pushing out messaging to its email list, mobile subscribers, Facebook, and Twitter.

On the first day of the program, the company nearly doubled its mobile subscriber list.   Within the next few days the list more than tripled in subscriber numbers. The campaign was so successful that Ubisoft has decided to allow more people than originally planned to get codes to unlock the content.

This is another testament to what compelling messaging and offerings can do in terms of user engagement. Ubisoft gave gamers what they wanted, and the gamers responded.

Way to engage your community!

The result thus far have been amazing – so amazing that the company is already planning content that can be unlocked via text for future games. Next up: Prince of Persia.

You can read more about the campaign on Mashable.

* Note: Message and data rates may apply.