Boost Off-Season Sales: HyperX and Rage 2 Collaboration

Introductory notes

The end of spring is a traditional period of calm in the electronics market. Sales are declining due to the seasonal factor, but at the same time, this is an opportunity to stand out and win over competitors. We decided to catch a hype with the HyperX brand and implemented a bright promo campaign based on collaboration with the Rage 2 game. This is the sequel to the first-person shooter released back in 2011. 

Spoilers

Partnership and co-branding with a leading global publisher allowed us to gain additional coverage where the brand could not have reached on its own. As a result of joint activities , we managed to increase sales of Kingston products by 50%, and all this during a period when consumer activity usually decreases.  

Realization

We decided that the release of the game would not be ignored by the audience waiting for the novelty. The choice for Rage 2 was not accidental. Firstly, the bright colorful visuals of the game and the festive May mood were perfectly combined. Secondly, the release of the game coincided with a period when we needed to implement a promotional campaign. Thirdly, Rage 2 is a very demanding game for hardware, and the vendor’s products are optimally suited for it.

The project began, of course, with negotiations with the copyright holder of the game brand – the American publisher of video games Bethesda Softworks. We came to them with a proposal to collaborate using Rage 2 visuals as part of an advertising campaign in support of HyperX and Kingston products.

Of course, we have justified why the partner would be interested in such joint activity: 

• The opportunity to get free coverage on those sites where there is an audience for the game;
• Coverage from leading retail partners where the game is not sold during the federal promo period;
• Mentions in target sections (SD, RAM, where there is a target audience of gamers) from leading retail partners;

We came up with and coordinated creatives and banner layouts for the company. We have fixed the KPIs, the mandatory points of the report on the results of our work. The key message of the campaign was the message: «For a comfortable game, 16 GB of HyperX RAM and a 240 GB Kingston SSD are recommended. Upgrade your PC profitably«.

As an advertisement and PR support we chose branding on IT portals, targeted advertising and crops in VK, an announcement on Habr, pre-rolls on gaming YouTube channels that planned to announce the release of the game. 

As a result, we got a good pool of sites for placement: 6 YouTube channels, 8 VK communities, plus there was a blog post on Habr, placement in online stores, as well as one publication in thematic media. 

VK

We have placed advertising posts in five gaming communities and one dedicated to IT. We received 35 thousand views and 211 clicks.

Two more posts posted on the VK-publics Citilink and «OGO!» received 27.5 thousand views. 

VKontakte targeting on IT, esports and gaming publics provided another 400 thousand views and 3,200 clicks.  

YouTube

Posting six pre-rolls with YouTube bloggers gave our company 1.2 million views and 2,500 clicks. 

Retailers’ websites and resources with reviews 

An advertising banner was also placed on the IT site for reviews and tests of equipment, gadgets and games with an audience of up to 500,000 people per month. During the week, we received 154,000 views and almost 1,500 clicks.

On the Onlinetrade, «OGO!», Ulmart and Citilink websites, advertising banners were placed in blocks with special offers and in thematic sections about computer peripherals.  

Results

In two weeks, we initiated 15 activities and received traffic of more than 7,000 clicks to stores with brand products. The collaboration with the game publisher worked. The audience caught our messages and reacted properly – sales were able to rise, despite the seasonal decline in the niche.