An extension of the LINE messenger brand, LINE PLAY has status as a top-three-grossing app globally. But US growth was slower than desired, so LINE PLAY engaged us to create a series of influencer videos promoting their game to American girls aged 13-24.
But we took the brief further, combining the absurdity of LINE PLAY’s animated avatar world with inspiration from YouTube star Meghan McCarthy’s zany life—and voice.
LINE PLAY had dipped its toes into influencer-driven video in previous campaigns, with loose integrations into the summer-themed vlogs of popular American YouTube creators. But instead of bringing the game to the YouTuber, we brought the YouTuber into the game.
I developed the concepts and co-wrote a three episode web series featuring the weird animated world of LINE PLAY and Meghan McCarthy—with her honest-to-goodness cartoon voice, gigantic personality, and millions of devoted fans.
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The goofiness of LINE PLAY provided plenty of material. We approached each of the three episodes as an independent sketch, focusing on the central themes of the game that would best resonate with Meghan McCarthy’s personality and young audience—fashion, awkward romance, and prideful individuality—collaborating with McCarthy herself on the content of each episode.
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Within four weeks we garnered over one million video views across three platforms: YouTube, Instagram, and Vine. Sentiment analysis revealed an overwhelmingly positive response to our content, and indicated a great deal of immediate action taken by viewers to either download or play the game.
Comments like “I just started playing LINE PLAY because of this,” and “This is SO COOL!!! You have to do more! I’m definitely playing this” were more the norm than the exception—demonstrating greater success beyond the awareness metrics we were tracking.
Executive Creative Director: Scott Mallone
Group Creative Director: Nick Boes
Animation: Matt Webster
Graphic Design: Kate Hofstad
Senior Copywriter: Jonathan Miller
Producer: Shani Watson
Director, Integrated Marketing: Sarah Benedict