Nexon Case Study

Objective

Nexon wanted to increase the brand awareness and brand loyalty of their newly launched action role-playing game (RPG) “Building & Fighter”. The game provides players with a unique opportunity to travel around Korea using GPS tracking and fight over real-world landmarks. 

Solutions

As this game incorporates GPS data linked to the player's actual location, Nexon leveraged the Hivestack platform to utilize geo-location targeting, allowing the brand to deliver contextually relevant creatives that would engage its target audiences on the go. Nexon worked closely with Hivestack to strategically select prominent buildings in Seoul that are integrated within the “Building & Fighter” game, then activate the ads on large format digital billboards located on these buildings. Furthermore, Nexon extended its advertising reach to include external billboards at thousands of “CU” convenience stores in Korea.

From an audience targeting perspective, Nexon leveraged Hivestack’s advanced suite of data and audience targeting solutions in order to reach key users via the following strategic tactics:

• Custom Audience segments were split into two groups - “Nexon’s mobile game users” (new users), and “Users who have installed Building & Fighter” (existing users). By utilizing Nexon's first-party data, the campaign was activated at optimal times when there was a high concentration of each target audience group in close proximity to the selected DOOH screens.

• Harnessing the flexible, dynamic and creative nature of programmatic DOOH, Nexon was able to dynamically serve 84 versions of captivating creatives, using the actual names of the locations along with the player’s nicknames. For example, if the ad was activated on the building named “Shilla Stay”, Nexon used various user nicknames to craft creatives, stating "(Nickname) is conquering Shilla Stay."

• After the campaign ended, device IDs that were exposed to the DOOH ads were shared with Nexon for a retargeting campaign via other digital channels to boost reach, effectiveness and drive game downloads.

Results 

By the end of its two-week flight time, the campaign generated over 1.6 million impressions across 6 iconic screens in Seoul and 1,605 “CU” convenience stores nationwide. 

• Nexon was able to identify the time period that recorded the highest impressions and audience concentration on each advertising platform. In addition, they were also able to identify which time period worked best for targeting each specific custom audience group. Providing these insights were especially useful as they could be utilized for future marketing plans.

  • The audience concentration score was highest from 8 am to 9 am and 9 pm to 11 pm on billboards

  • While it was 7 am to 10 am in convenience stores

This campaign, which leveraged both data-driven audience targeting and DCO strategies, stands as a groundbreaking initiative in Korea for its ability to transcend the constraints of traditional outdoor advertising.

Testimonial: 

"We always wanted to run campaigns that could provide Nexon users with a unique experience. This campaign seamlessly connected the gaming world with the real world, capturing audience interest and maximizing viewer engagement. With programmatic technology, we could deliver high-impact and relevant creatives to our core users with precision. Furthermore, by harnessing flexibility, we could accommodate multiple rounds of creative additions and updates in a short period of time. This campaign provides an opportunity to enhance the loyalty of our existing users and motivate more people to enjoy Nexon games with greater excitement."

-Woochang Lee, Deputy Department Manager of Marketing Engineering, Nexon