Challenge
To mix up a cocktail with a bunch of wild ingredients in a short time frame. Here's the kicker – we need to blend the renowned mature soccer player, Lukas Podolski, into the brand's funky, bold and youthful vibe and add retro-futuristic flair from the game season to make it pop.
Story
Collaboration with Lukas Podolsky aimed to raise awareness of the game in the European region and attract new players. That's why we had a whole bunch of stuff on our plate – creating the main video ad, making adaptations (live shoot based), crafting a user acquisition videos and organizing a photoshoot for the key art promo artworks. And that's not all – we also had to craft in-game goodies (profile backgrounds, an avatar), handle the posts on socials, design branded t-shirts and more.
So, there was quite a puzzle on our hands right from the start. Working with celebrities comes with its own set of commitments, you know. For instance, we needed to shoot everything in just one single day, when Lukas had a window of free time and do it in the small town of Katowice, from where he couldn't leave. So, during the concept phase, we had to factor all of that in and it was quite an adventure.
The WoT Blitz brand is all about emphasizing fun, excitement and modern vibes. Now, how do you bring together a soccer star, a special game positioning and retro-futurism? It was all about finding that perfect moment. And that's when it hit us – we came up with the slogan for the entire campaign: “Find your moment”, finding the connection between the game and Lukas Podolski. Every player knows that, during a game, there are these moments when you just lose track of time and space. You get completely absorbed by the game, and that's when you have the most fun squeezing every bit of enjoyment out of it. While working on the script, we played with the word “shot” which perfectly ties both the game and soccer together – it's beautiful how that little linguistic twist played out.
Production
When it came to the script for the main video, we went for what seemed like a regular press conference theme. But here's the genius part – we split the video into three parts, and each subsequent part hilariously mocks the previous one, adding a gradual increase in excitement and non-traditional vibes without losing the audience's interest. It's all about keeping everyone on their toes.
Take a peek at Lukas's outfit in the main video – pretty unique, huh? We came up with that idea ourselves, designed it with a retro-futuristic twist and had it tailor-made. We were super meticulous about all the props too. Check out the helmet in one of the scenes – handcrafted from an actual juice squeezer. Sounds familiar? It's a nod to the “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” helmet! Oh, and don't miss the easter egg with the replaced bottles on the table, paying homage to Ronaldo's Coca-Cola incident at a presser. And if you look closer at the banner behind the main hero, you'll spot some hilarious gamer stuff creatively disguised as logos on the press wall.
Now, let's talk about the drawn city in the following parts of the video – we went for that retro-futuristic style and sprinkled in assets from the season and elements from the game. And when the city dims out, we brainstormed like crazy to nail the right look. We pondered if the retro-futuristic world has a moon. If it does, what does it look like? We had 50 moon designs – all shapes, sizes and colors.
Even the scenes with stealth tanks took some serious brainstorming – we wanted to capture that romantic date vibe. How should they look? What accessories should they have? Different colors or shapes? Drawing the right character and bringing out their personality is always fascinating and not always easy. Those two seconds on the screen are packed with layers of metaphors and loads of effort.
Working on this campaign, we also organized a photoshoot with Lukas at the same location and to keep to the timing, prepared sketches in advance to show how he should pose and stand, capturing just the right angles. We used those photos in the key visual and whipped up several versions. And let's not forget – we recorded the greeting, made behind-the-scenes videos and worked on a whopping 156 different localizations. Additionally, we were diving headfirst into the world of in-game content and we wanted them to really shine in all sorts of sizes, so we tinkered with the colors, made sure backgrounds were razor-sharp.
That's the scoop on what we've been up to with this project!
Rate
It was an accurate shot!
+41% increase in daily new users during the campaign.
+33% increase in organic traffic & +65% increase in product page views on Google Play.
Increased brand awareness in Germany by 2.8%!
