Free Fire, with over a billion downloads, is a blue ocean for a growing community of value-for-money gamers in under-served Asian markets.

To engage with price-sensitive gamers Garena joined forces with Google Play and transformed the launch for Winterlands (Free Fire’s seasonal drop) into a hunt for promotions— rewarding the community with Google Play Points and exclusive prizes.

By making media into play and social media into a playground, Free Fire was able to turn every viewer into a player, resulting in high engagement rates and a significant revenue uplift.

Situation:

Free Fire, a battle royale game, was facing a dip in daily active users due to the emergence of new battle royale games. To address this, Garena, the developer of Free Fire, wanted to reignite passion for the game with existing gamers and excite new players.

Brief:

The brief was to create buzz in the battle royale gaming by announcing Winterlands, a new limited-time launch within Free Fire, to increase participation rates compared to the pandemic years.

Objectives:

Make the most of the Google Play partnership to reignite the passion for Free Fire with gamers and excite new players with promotions to try new skins, new maps, new weapons and new adventures.

Bring relevance to the game by collaborating with gaming influencers to engage with fans through influencer-led content to amplify Google Play Winterlands promotions.

“I never thought I’d re-watch ads, i’m hooked” - One of the player comments that capture the ground-breaking concept we created with the Winterlands Code Hunt. With a focus on reigniting player passion for Free Fire we created an integrated media scavenger hunt in collaboration with Asia's biggest gaming influencers to engage players and created a craze among gamers to find hidden codes in every piece of content, like they do while playing Free Fire. On finding the codes gamers could redeem them directly on Google Play, with exclusive in-game rewards and IRL prizes. The more codes they found, the higher the chances of winning. The campaign’s innovative media twist turned content about the game into a game. The brand used owned and paid channels to amplify the message, which created the buzz it was looking for. Daily and weekly prizes meant gamers were hooked during the entire campaign period.

The Winterlands Code Hunt campaign by Garena targeted existing and lapsed Free Fire gamers, as well as a broader audience of Android users interested in mobile gaming. To reach a wider audience, Garena partnered strategically with Google Play, which helped to amplify the message and increase the campaign's visibility among Android users. The campaign was featured prominently on the Google Play store, driving downloads and engagement. Additionally, a deep product integration enabled users to have a seamless and enhanced experience on Google Play, enhancing the delight factor for gamers.

The campaign leveraged influencers and content creators to create exclusive content with codes that could directly be redeemed on the Google Play Store, further engaging the gaming community. By combining a strategic partnership with Google Play, influencer collaborations, and exclusive content, Garena was able to drive engagement and reignite the passion of Free Fire gamers while attracting new audiences.

The Winterlands Code Hunt campaign was executed through a multi-channel approach, including owned, earned, and paid media. The campaign started on December 1, 2022, and ran for three weeks until January 8, 2023.

The implementation of the campaign involved the creation and hiding of codes across all touchpoints, including in-game, social media, influencer content, and Google Display Networks.

The placement of the campaign was widespread, with codes hidden across Free Fire's social media platforms, influencer content, and even on Google Play Store.

The scale of the campaign was significant with the brand partnering with Google Play to amplify the message and reach a wider audience of Android users. The campaign also utilised Asia’s biggest gaming influencers to create more exclusive content with codes to engage the gaming community further.

Overall, the Winterlands Codehunt campaign was a comprehensive and integrated marketing effort to reignite the passion for the game.

In just three weeks

Paid media:

Total impressions - 2.308 billion

Reach - 269 million

Completed views - 518 million

Code Hunt Contest via Influencers Organic Reach on Social:

Total awareness (views) - 29, 413 813

Total engagement (reaction, comments, shares) - 1, 800 794

Total no. of submissions through contest forms - 39, 882

Total winners - 26, 449

Substantial increase in visits, clicks and conversions on the app during campaign period:

187X Increased visits to Play Store

4.7M Clicks

118K Install

517k members buyers made a purchase in the Garena Free Fire app, 69k members activated the promotional booster and 6.6k made a purchase after activating the booster

The campaign succeeded in reigniting the passion for Free Fire among veteran gamers and attracting new players and helped position Google Play as the premier gaming destination that offers more than a transactional experience to its users.

Indonesia and Thailand are countries with a growing gaming culture, with mobile gaming being particularly popular. We needed something that would connect to gamers to show value that went beyond cheap diamonds in the game. It had to show we understood what made them tick - their desire to hunt and their tribal instinct to belong to a squad.

The Winterlands campaign incorporated all these elements throughout the campaign. First, the biggest gaming influencers were cast in leading roles in a storyline that played out in the heart of Jakarta and Bangkok. Additionally, Garena and Google collaborated with local gaming influencers to promote the game and hold contests specific to the Indonesian and Thai markets. Even the game incorporated elements of the local culture into the game, such as adding local language options and featuring cultural landmarks and references in the game's background creating a personalised and immersive experience.