Case Study
Neon & The Last of Us S1
Background
Sky affiliated VOD platform Neon were looking to grow subscribers by encouraging gamers to sign up for a 7-day free trial, and watch HBO’s brand-new show The Last Of Us, based on the hit video game.
Opportunity
The Last of Us is recognized to be one of the finest third-person adventure games of its kind. Existing fans of the game would be well aware of the upcoming HBO show, and pumped to see it brought to life In narrative form - but what about the rest of us? We needed to convert those who’d never heard of it, never played it or ruled it out as not their style. The challenge was to help gaming and youth audiences discover the star power and emotional punch of the show, without referring to the game in any way.
Execution
LPL devised a 14 week campaign based on HBO’s release schedule. We invited Kiwi gamers Xenojay and Timprovise to review the series, filming 5 x 2 minute videos at LPL studios. Each review was released fortnightly across all LPL platforms on the same day the new ep dropped. We served them up:
- During countdowns and ad breaks in 40 LPL pro tournament Twitch broadcasts
- Via a boosted post on LPL’s Facebook and Twitter accounts
- We ran a giveaway competition on our socials and in broadcast giving away 3-month free subscriptions.
- Xenojay supplied review copy for our monthly community EDM
- Timprovise and Xenojay created and booster their own posts referencing the partnership on their Instgram & Facebook channels
- Neon logo & TLOU key art featured in the web ad rotation on www.letsplay.live
- NEON became an LPL associate sponsor of LPL for the duration. The Neon logo, branding and Twitch bot pop-ups linking through to www.neon.co.nz featured in 40 LPL pro tournament Twitch broadcasts
- Elements from the campaign were further amplified onto linear TV in NZ and Australia as part of our distribution agreements with Channel 7 Australia & Sky Sport NZ
Result
HBO’S TLOU has become a global phenomenon lauded for breathing new life into the zombie genre. With the campaign still in market at the time of writing, reach results are not finalised, but HBO’S The Last of US has already exceeded Neon’s acquisition target.