Situation:

Gaming is a very hard and competitive industry for brands with an audience that is extremely selective and sceptic towards traditional advertising.

Brief:

With our limited resources and budget, create awareness and activation online around Lenovo’s gaming equipment ‘Legion’ on our market (Sweden), true to the brand promise “Different is better”.

Target audience:

Young gamers 18-30 yrs.

All gamers have two personalities. One into which they are born and another one which they create by being successful. We wanted Lenovo to give them the chance to unite the two and show that gaming is as important to them as life itself. Simply by changing their birth name to their online nickname. But for real.

Target Audience:

Young gamers in Sweden, 18-30 years old.

Approach:

Lenovo wants to market their gaming hardware and equipment to gamers. And gamers create their identity online, where their actions are synonymous with their nickname. So, they might feel like a ‘nobody’ in real life, but stars in the gaming world. We saw an opportunity to create an engaging activation that combines the offline and online world and a way to erase the borders between the two. Starting with the application in Lenovo's own channels, the reveal of gaming superstar HeatoN as the Baptizer and the ceremony taking place at the DreamHack gaming event where most of the target audience's attention is focused every six months.

The campaign had two main phases. First a cryptical teaser film, which launched the application on Lenovo's website. The film featured iconic gaming superstar HeatoN as our "Baptizer" and was launched in social media, created a buzz and lots of engagement which led to over 130 actual applications. This is incredible, when you realize the fact that they actually wanted to go ahead and change the names their parents gave them to put their gaming nicks in their id-papers. Even if there is a freak factor to the whole thing, the gamers loved it.

Phase two was the actual baptism ceremony at gaming convention DreamHack. The interest soared at the event and even If only a lucky 20 were chosen for a baptize ceremony to shine in front of their loved ones everyone in the hall could feel the digital and the real world come together.

The Baptizer was not only successful in the way it made a connection and credibility to the Lenovo brand by engagement and liking. It was also voted the best brand presence of this year's DreamHack by its visitors.

Total number of applications for the ceremony: 130.

Number of people being baptized: 20

Number of names changed with the Swedish tax office 17 (3 were disapproved!)

Social media engagement: 198.134

Social media impressions: 1.994.300

Impressions for the rest of their lives amongst the 20 people who were baptized: 100%