Wall of Brawl Stars posters with cartoon wrestler and bearded miner, one reading "PYROTECHNIK IST DOCH KEIN VERBRECHEN!"
Submitted by The Romans

Brawl Stars

Influencer Marketing

The Romans concentrated Brawl Stars out of home on Berlin and partnered 8 German creators to carry it online, with the agency reporting 11M combined social views.

20knew players gained
11Mcombined social views
100k+re-engaged gamers
8German creators partnered

Case in 60 seconds

Supercell briefed The Romans to re-engage teen Brawl Stars players and bring the crude fun they had been missing into the real world, so the work had to reach those players somewhere other than inside the game.

The campaign appears to turn on the reading that teen players notice concentration rather than coverage, because a city saturated with Brawl visuals becomes something worth posting about while a scattered national buy does not.

Rather than spreading the out of home buy across Germany, the campaign took over Berlin with bright, fun and cheeky advertising that captured the essence of Brawl and gave creators a single moment to talk about online.

The Romans partnered with 8 German creators across gaming, lifestyle and football, then worked with them and SK Gaming on content tying the Berlin visuals to Brawl Stars' tone of voice for each creator's channel.

The Romans reports 20k new players gained and 100k+ re-engaged gamers against a brief written around re-engagement, alongside 11M combined social views across the creator content.

Strategy Breakdown

Teen Brawl Stars players in Germany who had drifted from the game, reached through German creators with interests in gaming, lifestyle and football.
Based on the available evidence, the tension sits between a game whose humour is deliberately crude and an out of home format that is public and shared, so the Berlin placements had to read as cheeky rather than cleaned up.
Games compete for the attention of people who already know the product, so re-engagement asks for a reason to return rather than an introduction; the page does not state what had pulled those players away in the first place.
Brawl Stars supplies the campaign's visual and verbal register, with the Berlin placements and the creator content both built from the game's own tone of voice rather than from an advertising idea sitting beside it.
Based on the available evidence, teenagers treat a city takeover as an event to document, so the creator partnerships read as a way of converting a physical media moment into social conversation rather than of advertising the game directly.

Creative & Execution System

Partners

  • The Romans
  • SK Gaming

Results & Evidence

MetricValue
New Players Gained20k new players gained
Combined Social Views11M combined social views
Re-Engaged Gamers100k+ re-engaged gamers
German Creators PartneredWe then partnered with 8 top German creators with interests in gaming, lifestyle and football to drive the OOH moment as a talking point online.

Why The Romans' strategy worked

  1. 1

    Concentrating an out of home buy in one city rather than spreading it nationally gives creators a locatable event to react to, which turns a media placement into something content can be built from.

  2. 2

    Casting creators across gaming, lifestyle and football rather than gaming alone widens the route back to a lapsed player, because the game is met inside interests those players already hold.

  3. 3

    Pairing individual creators with an established esports organisation such as SK Gaming gives a game campaign standing inside the competitive scene, which creator posts assembled on their own do not carry.

Related Case studies