Mobile game developer Uglysoft approached us to help with the global launch of its satirical iOS/Android game Dear Leader. Entirely tongue-in-cheek, Dear Leader casts players as Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, and other familiar characters on a quest to thwart the demonic threat. Big Games Machine was also tasked with coming up and executing a creative campaign to drive even more awareness of the game beyond the traditional mobile games media.
Uglysoft
Dear Leader
iOS & Android
Launch PR
What we did
“It’s our job to separate the news from the marketing bumf, but sometimes, a press release is too good not to share in its entirety. Enter Dear Leader…….honestly? The game could be absolute bollocks – we really have no idea – but the press release certainly got our attention here at Thumbsticks Towers.” – Thumbsticks
We’re not one to brag but we rarely (if ever) see journalists writing about press releases. But Thumbsticks liked the press release we sent them so much that they felt compelled to share it with their readers.
You can read the article here
We planned and executed a creative campaign targeted at 20 journalists from top publications, including IGN, Eurogamer, Gamespot and others.
Each journalist was sent a package containing a letter – complete with a scanned signature – stating that they had been invited to take part in a secret initiative called the Journalist Union of North Korea (J.U.N.K); An exclusive VIP tour of Pyongyang which includes a trip to a lubricant production plant. Our package also contained Trump-branded toilet paper “from the Supreme Leader’s own personal supply”. We packaged the items and letters so that they looked like they had come from a North Korean official, meaning envelopes each had “Top Secret”, North Korean mail and custom DPRK Workers party stamps.
For the campaign follow-up, we created a fictitious email domain, with a call-to-action for each journalist to email that account if they’d like to take part in the initiative. We then monitored all journalists social media activity for coverage and initial reactions to receiving this package on channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To respond to coverage and reactions, we created and ran a fake Twitter account called Yo Kung (the name of the fake government contact from the letter).
