Since its launch in 2020 Merge Mansion has relied heavily on it’s storyline featuring family drama and mystery revolving around a condemned mansion and the secretive Grandma Ursula. This rich lore combined with 3D animated ads that raise more questions than give answers has earned the game a devoted fan following and cult like internet status. But in order to break out of it’s niche internet fame we needed to do something that would get the masses interested in “What’s Grandma Hiding?”

The objective of the campaign became to make Grandma Ursula and the game famous and raise Merge Mansion to the next level of pop culture fame.

To get the masses interested we decided to lean heavily on the game’s proven recipe for success, but added some extra spice by introducing a new character, a hard-nosed detective faced with the hardest case of their career. Our star investigator, played by Pedro Pascal, would be the vehicle that allowed us to turn the cold case into an investigation for the masses.

After grabbing the attention of the internet in the form of three true crime style trailer films, we upped the ante in a brand experience where we invited Pascal along with other mystery-busting celebrity sleuths, YouTubers, influencers and super fans to a real-life replica of the mansion to find out what Grandma is hiding. This experience was then broadcast to the world through the participants’ social channels, PR, and a cinematic after movie urging people to solve mystery themselves by playing the game.

We uncovered a diverse subset of fans from the Lore Lovers, Modest Mergers, and Subreddit Gamers who all share their love for the Merge Mansion story. For two years they have played the game, waiting to get inside, and being led on a wild goose chase by the taskmaster, Grandma Ursula. It’s time to deliver satisfaction. To allow fans inside to discover and solve the mystery hidden within. Because for these fans it’s more than just a game, it is a rich, compelling, exploratory universe… And it was time to bring that world to life.

To build on the launch moment, we hired Detective Tim Rockford, played by Pedro Pascal, to unravel the mansion's secrets in a series of trailers. With 38M views on YouTube alone the films took the internet by storm.

Next Pascal was joined by celebrity sleuths, Ashley Benson and Jesse Williams for an on-site investigation inside the mansion with a handful of super fans and content creators. Part live-action theatre meets escape room, and part Instagrammable lore-museum the guests were immersed into the world of Merge Mansion. The surreal adventure blurred the line between entertainment and reality as participants crawled through fireplaces, dug through pies for clues, and solved escape room-style puzzles to uncover Grandma Ursula's secrets.

A post-event cinematic film gave fans worldwide a glimpse inside the mansion and urged them to download Merge Mansion for a chance to develop their own theories of what Grandma Ursula is hiding.

The investigation clocked 1 billion total impressions across platforms and over 300 different publications reported on the genre-bending integrated campaign. In other words: the internet. Went. Nuts. It didn’t just make a splash, the trailers released a tidal wave of reactions that plastered every social platform. Recruiting millions of investigators from around the globe.

The trailer films have been viewed 38.1 million times on YouTube, received over 218,000 likes on TikTok, plus 138,000 likes on Instagram over the course of the campaign. 

The Merge Mansion event day made a splash with 177.9M social impressions causing a riptide of intrigue. But most importantly fans worldwide were obsessed with the campaign, joining the investigation to search for answers and share their theories, even igniting rumors of an actual Merge Mansion Movie.