Pokémon: Sword and Shield Expansion Pass

To raise awareness of their latest Pokémon expansion pass, Nintendo partnered with Venatus to build an interactive campaign promoting the new downloadable content towards young gamers.

Nintendo
Pokémon

Pokémon: Sword and Shield Expansion Pass

As an extension of their Sword and Shield game, Pokémon’s new DLC offered players the opportunity to unlock new stories, new Pokémon and a new Wild Area to explore. To promote the launch of this new downloadable content, Nintendo partnered with Venatus to raise awareness amongst young Pokémon enthusiasts.

Target Audience

Inventory / Network

Nintendo aimed to generate awareness of their expansion pass among existing fans of both Pokémon and Nintendo, but also new customers by reaching young gamers.

Boys & Girls

Strategy

To best reach young gamers, Nintendo and 7 Stars partnered with Venatus to leverage their vast portfolio of gaming inventory. To connect with gamers in-app and allow them to interact with the Pokémon franchise, an MRAID minigame was chosen for its customizable and interactive nature, whilst a pre-roll cross-device video placement allowed for mass reach amongst gamers online. 

Pokémon: Sword and Shield Expansion Pass

Creative

Ad Formats

Venatus created a custom MRAID minigame encouraging players to test their Pokémon knowledge by taking an interactive Pokémon themed Quiz. The quiz highlighted the different characters, areas and features of the new DLC, helping to generate excitement for the new Pokémon expansion pass. The campaign’s video creative was utilized as part of a pre-roll video placement, generating awareness of the new expansion pass features on the web. At the end of both the quiz and the video creative, audiences were invited to learn more about the expansion pass with a CTA linking to the Nintendo website.

Play the MRAID minigame here!

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Delivery

The campaign was delivered across Venatus’ exclusive gaming app inventory found most popular with young gamers, such as Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies, whilst the video portion reached gaming audiences online, across popular desktop sites such as Videogamer.

Results

Expansive Campaign Performance

The campaign delivered in full with both the MRAID minigame and pre-roll video receiving high engagement from young gaming audiences. The MRAID minigame received a very high CTR of 12.3% and an engagement rate of 40.1%, whilst the pre-roll video portion saw equally high results, receiving a strong CTR of 8.4% and VTR of 87.6%.

12.3%

CTR (MRAID)

40.1%

Engagement Rate (MRAID)

8.4%

CTR (Pre-Roll Video)

87.6%

VTR (Pre-Roll Video)

The guys at Venatus helped us with a fantastic campaign promoting our Pokémon DLC across key gaming environments for our ever-important younger audience. Great to see such strong engagement.

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