Client
Duration
Mar 12, 2024
#
Branding
Capturing a new fleet of players without abandoning the veterans
A dual-audience creator strategy that grew World of Warships' new player acquisition while keeping the hardcore community engaged and respected.
About the campaign
World of Warships needed to expand its playerbase without making its veteran community feel like the game was being dumbed down for newcomers.
Wargaming came to Xercus® with a dual objective — attract new players through accessible, visually exciting creator content, while simultaneously running deeper, mechanics-focused content for the existing hardcore base. Two audiences, two tones, one campaign. Xercus® built a split creator strategy: entry-level gaming creators for new player acquisition on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, and specialist naval/strategy creators for long-form retention content on full-length YouTube.
Challanges
Speaking to two completely different audiences at the same time without alienating either one is one of the hardest briefs in gaming marketing.
New players find World of Warships intimidating. Veterans find dumbed-down marketing insulting. Threading that needle required two completely separate creator briefs, two content styles, and two distribution strategies — all running simultaneously without contradicting each other in the algorithm or the community. Xercus® managed both tracks in parallel, with weekly performance check-ins to rebalance budget allocation based on which creator tier was delivering stronger results in real time.
Summary
New player acquisition up. Veteran retention holding strong. Both audiences reached on their own terms.
The campaign activated 19 creators split across two strategic tiers. New player content generated 6.1M views on short-form platforms with a 3.8% click-to-install rate — well above industry benchmark. Long-form veteran content averaged 280K views per video with above-average watch time, confirming genuine audience engagement rather than passive impressions. Wargaming reported their strongest new player cohort in 18 months. The dual-track model is now their standard approach for all future Xercus® campaigns.
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