Mobile gaming, an activity that more than 60% of post 90s are obsessed with, is a great way to approach the young audience. But how can we do it in a way that’s non cliché and truly be impactful, both to business and to gamers?

Through our research, we found a unique insight.

While most mobile game types are good to play alone, there is one exception – multiple player battle games.

These games are better to play together with fellow gamers in an offline location because they require team strategy and seamless coordination. Playing together offline also give gamers a sense of brotherhood.

This could be a perfect opportunity for Pizza Hut.

Working hand in hand directly with the team at King of Glory, we created a location-based in game targeting system.

Whenever any King of Glory player went anywhere within a 5 minutes radius of a Pizza Hut store, we will push a notification to them, inviting them to form teams at the nearest Pizza Hut. The notification roughly translated read “Play everywhere, but come to Pizza Hut to be must win!”

After they clicked into the game, they would see which other gamers are around the area, and form a team.

Pizza Hut stores were decorated with elements from the game, even with cosplayers dressed as characters from the game.

Once they were in the Pizza Hut store, we provided them a gamer only Wi-Fi so that they had the best gaming experience.

We also gave players a limited edition in-game theme that can only be redeemed once they finished team games.

In 20 days, over 100,000 gamers rushed into the Pizza Hut stores and played King of Glory in Pizza Hut stores, 2 times more than what we originally expected.

Over 150,000 limited edition King of Glory special meal sets were sold out, each valued at RMB 213, resulting in a total value of 32 million RMB (USD 4.4 million), a staggering 900% ROI!

But most importantly, Pizza Hut established affinity among young gamers. 50% of gamers plan to go to Pizza Hut and play the game offline even after the campaign is over. (Source: Weibo, CI)