World of Warcraft: The War Within

World of Warcraft needed to raise awareness and purchase intent for its War Within expansion among active, casual and lapsed gamers in the UK and Nordics, but WoW-native creators would mostly reach existing fans. The Goat Agency's read was that casual and lapsed players follow creators in gaming-adjacent niches, cosplay, arts and crafts, STEM and music, rather than dedicated gaming channels, so those creators could carry the game to audiences that gaming content misses. Selection ran on the agency's proprietary Ibex tool, which identified crossover audiences between gaming and adjacent niches.

The idea cast the expansion's villain Xal'atath as the campaign's engine, publicly tempting 10 crossover creators from cosplay, arts and crafts, STEM, toy design and music, including MissMikkaa, Strippin, Nerdforge and JamesBruton, to join her side, then letting each fold the game into their own format. The work ran in three phases across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch and X: a storyline-led awareness phase, native in-format integrations such as Nerdforge's two-paintings-on-one-canvas challenge, and a Collector's Edition giveaway run through each creator's channels.

Letting creators integrate the game natively rather than run a fixed ad format drew comments praising the work as advertising done right. The Goat Agency reports 72 pieces of content generating 631,000 engagements at a 7% engagement rate against a 4% average, with 90% positive sentiment, a Shorty Awards Gaming finalist placing and a nomination at The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA. All figures are self-reported, with no reach, impression, purchase intent or sales data published and no launch date stated.