Background
Every year, just before Christmas, Wargaming launches its biggest campaign for all the tank games as part of the Holiday Ops event, featuring global celebrities. Milla Jovovich, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vinnie Jones — and this year, Jason Statham — have all brought traditional holiday values, the spirit of Christmas and all the festive cheer.
But in 2024, World of Tanks Blitz decided to create its own campaign, focusing on Gen Z, speaking their language and showcasing the celebrity they resonate with.
Challenge
So, it was a big deal…
The WoT Blitz team chose to collaborate with a celebrity who was quite unconventional compared to those featured in past campaigns. Joel Zimmerman, aka deadmau5, is a Canadian electronic music producer and DJ. We saw this as an opportunity to speak to the audience in a new way, to present the game differently.
The research we conducted to understand how Generation Z feels about Christmas highlighted something we already suspected. The new generation doesn't necessarily associate Christmas with a family holiday, and they don't like the pressure to spend it at home. They easily see Christmas as just another party.
The goal was to step away from the theme of traditional Christmas. In fact, the idea was to do the opposite, but without disrespecting Christmas. That's why we were faced with the challenge of finding a different angle. At that point we came up with Blitz hits different, the campaign’s main tagline. It clearly addressed the brief’s objectives, clarifying how we could evolve the project and the message we wanted to convey.
As we built the campaign, we concentrated on fostering the Hits Different narrative within the team. We defined Hits Different as something unique, better than the usual. We had a kind of mantra: we’d create something, then step back and ask ourselves, "How is this different from what came before?" It was kind of a philosophy we were building.
Production
More than a hundred people worked on the entire project. Beyond in-game content, the campaign showcased a comprehensive suite of promotional assets and activations, including 88 key arts, 17 unique videos and themed app store packages. The integration also featured digital billboards in Los Angeles and Las Vegas and exclusive merchandise.
The story told in the main video revolves around the character deadmau5 putting on a helmet and transforming into his avatar, who then tears through the city in a tank, filled with crazy characters and events. Deadmau5 suggested a number of tracks that he could release, and we chose one that hadn’t been shown anywhere before. So, this was the official release of the new composition, and our video became the official music video for it. By the way, later there were many comments from fans saying that deadmau5 came back with an awesome track.
One of our favorite aspects of the main video is a huge number of Easter eggs. There’s a reason for the duck, a reason for the guy carrying boxes and a reason for the yellow characters — a lot of elements that nod to different events in WoT Blitz. They help create stronger emotional connections with the game's fans and make the video more meaningful to the community.
The real challenge was to integrate these Easter eggs seamlessly throughout the video. In the end, however, dedicated players and game developers praised it as the most Easter egg-filled WoT Blitz video, one they rewatch on repeat to find them all.
The shooting of deadmau5 took place in Miami. We worked with one of the largest local studios, which has various types of camera robots. This technology involves complex, programmable camera movements, which were essential because the narrative of the video required intricate angles and complicated camera movements, both in the CGI and live-action parts. The shoot day was very tight. The main challenge — aside from the shots for the primary video — was capturing a lot of additional marketing assets with deadmau5.
One talented engineer and artist created a custom deadmau5 mask for the video, which featured built-in LED panels that responded to sound and displayed a sound wave histogram. It turned out to be a very heavy piece, which presented a challenge that deadmau5 accepted and handled like a pro.
Results
If you look at the reaction, the overall feeling is one of positive surprise — people saw something unexpected, something different, something WoT Blitz hadn’t done before. The numbers are also inspiring:
- 1,536 campaign assets
- 282 million campaign impressions
- Monthly game revenue ↑44%
Here at Playsense, we were definitely the good boys and girls last year, since we got the best gift from Santa — the unique opportunity to work on such a complex and awesome project.
