Seriously, the creators of the hit mobile games Best Fiends and Best Fiends Forever, is building an entertainment brand through mobile gaming experiences. Just like a Hollywood studio might have a television show or a film as the key foundation for a franchise, Seriously treats its mobile apps the same way.
Seriously has a vision that future entertainment brands will be built on mobile first, with content directly connected to the audience and treated as a service. Seriously's animated shorts, Boot Camp and Visit Minutia, mark the first major effort by Seriously to expand Best Fiends beyond its mobile games and demonstrate the brand's potential to become a major entertainment franchise. The goal of the branded content is to broaden the world of Minutia to life beyond the mobile and on to the various platforms their 1.8 million daily active unique players use outside of the game.
Seriously's team challenged themselves to create such a high level quality animation that it could run before a major motion picture in theaters. By creating the shorts with movie-quality animation, the Seriously team opens the door in how they can utilize their branded content.
All of the small creatures of Minutia lived in harmony until a meteor crashed into Mount Bloom. It brought a strange force that transformed the Slugs who lived there into an army of hapless pests. To stop the Slugs from taking over the world, the Fiends, a brave band of heroes, are fighting back.
The world of Minutia and characters of the Fiends and Slugs come to life in the Best Fiends mobile game. Seriously expanded the world outside of the game through their branded content, Boot Camp and Visit Minutia.
Movie-Quality Animated Shorts - Seriously recruited and secured Hollywood heavyweights for every detail - voice cast, animation production, writer, and music composition.
Starting with the script, J. Stewart Burns (The Simpsons) wrote the stories that would launch Seriously's first effort by the company to expand the Best Fiends brand beyond its mobile games. Both animations star a voice cast of Kate Walsh (13 Reasons Why), Mark Hamill (Star Wars), Pamela Adlon (Californication), David Herman (Office Space), and more. The short features full 3D CG animation production by Golden Globe-nominated Reel FX, and Heitor Pereira (Despicable Me) composed the music and recorded it with a live orchestra. The incredible Hollywood talent involved in the creation of the branded content demonstrates the industry's willingness to experiment with new mediums.
Hollywood-Like Marketing Campaign - In order to expand visibility of the Best Fiends branded content, the team used teasers, trailers, influencer marketing, and out-of-home to announce each short. The OOH campaign was complete with billboard, bus, and bench signage in key markets such as LA, SF, and Dallas targeting specific industries - Hollywood, tech, and animation.
Social Media Strategy - Seriously rolled out trailers and character teasers across all social media platforms to introduce both new and beloved characters from the game to their over 3 million fans. The team created specific strategies on video-first platforms Instagram and YouTube.
On Instagram, the team utilized the latest features like Instagram Stories to roll out teasers to their existing community because they know the characters before introducing the longer trailer version. This was used as a driver for them to watch the full trailer and animation. Since Instagram Stories was a new product at the time, it was critical to take advantage of the tool's high volume of traffic and engagement. Seriously tapped hyper-targeted YouTube and Instagram creators to distribute the trailers on their accounts, reaching a wider audience beyond the Best Fiends community.
Integrating The Game - Seriously created a video player within the Best Fiends app so players could enjoy the expanding world of Minutia and redefined to the community how entertainment from different mediums can be consumed in one place for one brand on mobile. This expanded the reach of the shorts beyond social media channel and demonstrated the power mobile has to have a direct connection between fans and the brand.
The Best Fiends Animations Campaign has been wildly successful.
To date, both Boot Camp and Visit Minutia have over 10 million views combined. With their launch, the Best Fiends YouTube channel increased the subscriber count by more than 30%, reaching 550,000 subscribers.
Most notably, each animation debut led to revenue peaks.
