Case Study: Stick Tennis Tour Launch

When readers of The Sun opened the paper last Friday, they were met with a challenge to take on games editor Lee Price in a game of Stick Tennis Tour 2.0 that day. Behind the scenes, Stick Sports had briefed PR and marketing agency Dimoso to publicise the launch of its newest game by partnering up with a major press partner. The results? A 666% increase in iOS downloads on the day and 78% of users beat Lee Price at the game.

Campaign: Stick Tennis Tour Launch
Client: Stick Sports
PR Team: Dimoso
Timing: Friday 12 February 2016
Budget:  £2000

Overview

Stick Sports Ltd is an independent games developer and publisher, producing online and mobile sports games. Combining simplistic graphics and fast gameplay, its sports game, Stick Cricket, has gone on to record more than 1 billion plays from 100 million players.

Objectives

Last week, Dimoso was called in to launch Stick Sports’s newest game on mobile: Stick Tennis Tour 2.0.

The brief required the agency to:

• Publicise the game.
• Create a partnership with a major press outlet.
• Increase players during launch period.

Strategy

Stick Sports Tour tasked Dimoso to drive players and work with a major press partner. With that in mind, Dimoso secured a great opportunity with The Sun and The Sun Online.

Working with games editor Lee Price, Stick created a Sun-branded court (complete with courtside fans reading the paper in the stands) with a character created to represent Lee, who the public where challenged, over a 24 hour period, to play and beat.

Today, I'm joining the world's best tennis players on Stick Tennis Tour. Play me here: https://t.co/CH3S9NGHfV pic.twitter.com/10P39L1cHk

— Lee Price (@Lee_Price) February 12, 2016

The initiative launched on Friday 12 February at midnight, to suit the global audience that Stick Sports attracts. The Sun also agreed to place Stick Tennis Tour as the lead story on 12 February. The piece also ran in The Sun newspaper, landing on people’s breakfast tables first thing in the morning. The challenge was well and truly set.

Around 9am Stick Sports began running the story on its social media channels, with a reach of around 18,000 followers on Twitter and 141,000 followers on Facebook.

The Sun then posted the challenge onto its Twitter account, reaching another 1 million followers.

Throughout the day the event gathered momentum as players began reading the piece in the paper and online, then challenging Lee in the game and showing their scores on Twitter.

Stick Sports had no paid campaigns running in the UK on Friday, so the uplift in downloads would be solely down to The Sun and associated social media activity.

Results

• Android – 107% increase in daily downloads in the UK.
• iOS – 666% increase in daily downloads in the UK.
• The game jumped 194 places in the UK iOS Sports Games charts, peaking at 60.
• Of the users who have downloaded the app, Friday was the best day for retention rates since Stick Tennis Tour 2.0 launched.
• Most importantly, 78% of users taking part managed to beat Lee Price!

Got a cracking campaign – with impressive results – that you’d like to showcase? If so, please email [email protected].