Sweet Crush Saga has turn out to be one of many largest and hottest video games on the cell market. So, not solely is it essential that builders be sure that content material is saved recent for gamers, however advertising and marketing performs an important function in serving to to retain followers and be sure that new ones proceed to catch the bug.
We caught up with Sweet Crush Saga’s VP of selling, Luken Aragon, to debate profitable on the Cellular Sport Awards in the most effective advertising and marketing/PR class and the secrets and techniques behind Sweet Crush Saga’s profitable advertising and marketing technique.
Pocketgamer.biz: Congrats in your award! What do you assume put King on the prime of the pile and winners within the MGA Finest Advertising/PR class?
Luken Aragon: On the coronary heart of our Sweet Crush 10 Years of Enjoyable marketing campaign was the celebration of an enormous milestone for us at King, that Sweet Crush Saga turned ten years previous – one which we’re all immensely happy with. Each space of the enterprise got here collectively to mark the event, creating a really built-in marketing campaign that showcased every little thing that makes Sweet Crush Saga so particular, the individuals behind the sport, the sport itself and, in fact, our gamers.
Inform us about your exercise this final yr celebrating Sweet Crush Saga’s anniversary?
We needed to have a good time ten years of Sweet Crush Saga in a manner that lives as much as the enjoyment and playfulness that the sport brings to the world. An ambition of this scale required cross-functional collaboration with media, social, model, PR, company communications, and sport groups with a excessive degree of integration.
In-game, we launched various new options to please our gamers, together with a revamp of our music and audio for the primary time because the sport launched, in addition to an unique in-game occasion, ‘Sweet Cup’, in partnership with pop star Meghan Trainor.
As a part of the partnership, Meghan Trainor launched her new music video, “Made You Look,” solely in-game for twenty-four hours earlier than it was accessible anyplace else. She additionally recorded all eight in-game lexicons and was candified to affix Tiffi for a full in-game integration.
In October, we ran an thrilling creator-lead marketing campaign, Sweet Cave, an initiative to present aspiring content material creators the prospect to win a creator fund that enabled them to convey their Sweet Crush Saga fantasies to life. Six budding content material creators have been invited to pitch their wildest Sweet Crush themed fantasies to a panel of humorous judges.
The success of any advertising and marketing marketing campaign comes all the way down to individuals.
Luken Aragon
We introduced the magic of the sport to the skin world too, launching a visible out of house marketing campaign with a collection of billboards within the UK and US, highlighting on a regular basis conditions the place patterns, just like ones you’d see in Sweet Crush Saga, appeared, reinforcing that wherever you might be, you may nonetheless play.
Lastly, to conclude our tenth Anniversary Celebrations and mark Nationwide Sweet Day within the US, we produced a stunning drone present with 500 drones recreating the Sweet Crush gameplay within the sky throughout the Hudson River in New York.
What do you assume is essential to a profitable advertising and marketing marketing campaign?
A lot of issues, every little thing from the preliminary planning levels to the ultimate execution. Nonetheless, the success of any advertising and marketing marketing campaign comes all the way down to individuals – each the gifted entrepreneurs who convey it to life and the individuals it reaches. At King, our mission is Making the World Playful, which exhibits via our advertising and marketing efforts. We imagine that in at all times placing enjoyable on the forefront of what we do, we’ll efficiently stimulate emotion and set up resonance with our viewers, leading to long term affinity and engagement.
What sort of planning goes into creating the Sweet Crush 10 Years of Enjoyable marketing campaign? How many individuals throughout which international locations?
It’s an enormous effort, however a rewarding one, with our gifted staff persevering with to be the important thing to our success. Whereas we don’t give particular numbers on every staff, I can inform you we’ve round 2000 staff throughout the King enterprise, with workplaces in London, Berlin, Barcelona, Stockholm, Malmö, Malta, Dublin, New York, and San Francisco.
What makes King totally different? How would you describe the corporate and its tradition?
It could sound cliche to say this, however it actually is our individuals. They assist form a tradition that could be a particular mix of creativity, ardour, and collaboration. Being a Kingster isn’t solely what you do, it’s additionally the way you do it. This enables everybody to thrive, really feel proud to belong, maintain one another accountable and craft sensible video games of mass enchantment that convey moments of magic to on a regular basis life.
If there was one factor you would change about cell – the platforms, the shops, the video games – what would you modify to make everybody’s expertise even higher?
At King, we at all times put the participant first, creating new content material that retains gamers engaged and coming again for extra. We’ve got an formidable imaginative and prescient for the way forward for cell video games and thru our continued funding in AI & ML, we’ll proceed to boost and evolve our enterprise and iconic video games to make sure we delight King’s hundreds of thousands of gamers much more. That will probably be thrilling to discover!
Gamers are on the coronary heart of every little thing we do at King.
Luken Aragon
Why do you assume a sport like Sweet Crush is so fashionable and nicely cherished?
Gamers are on the coronary heart of every little thing we do at King. The Sweet Crush staff has labored exhausting over the past 10 years to constantly innovate, holding issues recent for brand new and present gamers by including new content material, options and in-game occasions. All the things from the sport’s interface to the free-to-play, match-three puzzle design have helped Sweet Crush keep its standing as one of the vital performed cell video games yr in and yr out. We look ahead to doing the identical for the subsequent 10 years.
What’s subsequent from you guys? Something you have obtained developing which you can share with us?
Whereas we’ve nothing to announce at the moment, and may’t reveal something upcoming, we’re at all times engaged on new content material for our stay franchises growing a centered pipeline of latest video games, all to shock and delight our gamers. Sweet Crush Saga simply had a Music Season with a collaboration with the Jonas Brothers, and obtained them ‘candified’, in addition to debuting their new tracks “Summer season Child” and “Sail Away” solely for twenty-four hours earlier than being accessible to stream anyplace else.
