NERF Battle Royale

Despite major challenges in 2019, NERF had the balls to go for a local campaign. Thanks to a strong strategy and spot-on creatives, the brand became popular again with its primary target audience. Resulting in the best Q4 turnover ever for NERF NL.

We want to regain the hearts of our target audience. So the campaign had to be authentic and credible from A to Z. That is why we not only looked at the reach of certain game influencers, but especially if they were a real match with NERF for the long-term. Because we wanted to create momentum and excitement, the campaign consisted of 3 levels. Level 1: Four popular game influencers announce that they will participate in the first ever NERF Battle Royale via their own social channels. Every influencer forms a team in which fans can win a spot. Level 2: After the selection of the fans, the four teams compete with each other on a huge NERF Battle Royale battlefield in Amsterdam where they played games that we created together with the game influencers. During this day the game influencers streamed all Battle Royale games live through their social channels. Level 3: During the NERF Battle Royale day we have shot all campaign assents. The campaign went live on social, digital, television and on bol.com for everyone to see.

Ultimately, around 16.750 kids signed up. A huge success. Within six weeks we reached 23.9 million views on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch and Giphy combined. And the bol.com assets had an additional 4 million views. More importantly we increased sales by + 26% (18% above target with a sales index of 176) in a highly competitive market, during the media heavy December month. Resulting in the best Q4 turnover ever for NERF NL. An amazing accomplishment.

Additional

This was NERF’s first ever 100% devised and crafted campaign in the Netherlands, in which all assets in various phases have strengthened each other tremendously. From branded influencer content, to TVCs and native bol.com assets, every element had the same feel and impact and ultimately ensured the best Q4 turnover ever for NERF NL. This result is even more impressive due to the modest campaign budget of less than € 700K for both creation and media.

At a certain age our target audience moves from playing into gaming. This is where we lose the majority of sales. The GFK kids monitor ’17 research we used showed that 96% of the target audience of NERF is playing online games. 33% do this every now and then and 67% do it frequently. Our insight was however that there are actual huge similarities in what they do; the main being that they still love to battle it out. Only the Arena they play in has evolved from the living room, bedroom or garden to their game console, phone and tablets. This drove our strategy: Instead of competing with (online) gaming we decided to use its popularity amongst our target audience by connecting the gaming element of NERF to the (online) gaming experience. Most frequently found in games such as Fortnite.

To gain momentum and credibility we teamed up with the most popular game influencers in the Netherlands. Together with them we created epic games that would be played in real life using NERF blasters. We called this: NERF Battle Royale.

We also worked closely together with bol.com (largest e-tailer in the Netherlands) as a sales partner in order to be readily available to parents and grandparents. This allowed us to compensate for the loss of revenue from Intertoys. Mainly we distributed the content we created through the most visited website and app among kids: YouTube. Which is also the go-to platform for boys to watch gaming videos.

NERF, known for its brightly coloured toy blasters, is the global market leader in outdoor and sports in the toys category. However, the brand faced a huge challenge in 2019, specifically in the Netherlands.. Partly due to the uncertain existence and eventual bankruptcy of Intertoys (the largest toy store in the Netherlands), sales and growth were stagnating. But also, the brands’ life cycle for boys between 10-14 years of age was getting shorter. NERF is not thought of as cool enough anymore and there are many alternatives for them to play with. Gaming being the main challenger.

In the face of these major challenges, NERF had a clear goal in mind:

Growth in sales of +8% in comparison to 2018. And ensure a boost in popularity and brand affinity within the target audience of 6-14 year old boys.

In addition to the hard targets, we also wanted to have a greater ambition. That is why we have formulated a short and long-term ambition together with NERF.

Our short-term ambition: appear on the December wish list of the target audience.

Our long-term ambition: This new campaign must be the first step to regain the heart of the target audience.

Jury Feedback

CRAFT - STRATEGY / NOMINATION

We as a jury wanted to nominate the work for a lamp and here is why: 1. We liked that it focused on the attention of the target audience and where they spend their time. That relates to the clear brand challenge (The TA is now interested in online video games and spend time on Twitch, YouTube, etc). 2. The work resulted in tangible business results. 3. Re-framing the world of Nerf in the context of online gaming was strong. The work embraced the competition, video gaming - rather than go up against it. 4. The work connected well with the audience and the world that they inhabit now. Why no lamp? Overall it was a good campaign with strong results. The case was well described and hit a lot of the criteria in our POV. But for a lamp it missed the excitement and surprising element to the strategy (and therefore the creative). In our opinion it wasn't unique and exciting enough to win a lamp.