Project Brief: Havocville Global Launch at SPIEL Essen 2025

Overview

Dice Coalition Games is preparing for the highly anticipated global release of its new tug-of-war board game, Havocville, at SPIEL Essen 2025, the world's largest board game fair.

Challenge: Digital Marketing Strategy

Our primary challenge is the current underperformance and inconsistency across key digital channels:

• Instagram: Low volume, lack of consistency, and a weak, undefined narrative.

• TikTok: Minimal presence, despite strong potential for growth using community trends and geek humor.

• YouTube: Sporadic video uploads with no structured series or cohesive storytelling.

• Newsletter: Currently inactive.

Objective:

To successfully re-engage and revitalize all core channels (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Newsletter) and execute a high-impact promotional campaign targeting the SPIEL Essen audience (primarily Europe) to drive launch visibility and sales interest.

Campaign Strategy

To achieve a successful launch, we will implement a two-phased, intensive campaign:

1. Phase 1 (September - Organic Focus): An intense, effective campaign focused on organic growth, leveraging high-quality content, consistency, and clear storytelling to rebuild audience engagement and anticipation.

2. Phase 2 (October - Paid Focus): Integration of targeted paid advertising (Ads) to amplify the organic momentum, specifically reaching the core board game community and attendees of SPIEL Essen.

Tools:

• Video Production & Capture: iPhone, Camera Nikon, Gimbal, DJI Microphone, Studio lights

• Post-Production, Visual Assets & Design: CapCut, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Canva

• Planning & Analytics: Notion, Excel, Meta Business

Key Results (October vs September)

Reach: 63,800 unique accounts (+1,900%)

Video views: 99,200 (+718%)

Link clicks: 741 (+7,300%, up from just 10 in September)

Profile visits: 702 (+217%)

Interactions: 1,100 (+114%)

New followers: 133 (+393%)

Link click to profile visit ratio: ~105%

Key Decisions and Insights

Identified a critical funnel failure in September: strong reach and engagement but near zero link clicks. Redesigned the October content strategy around direct link stickers in Stories and Reels, replacing the reliance on bio links.

Developed the "Join the godly Tug of War" hook as the core viral narrative, which became the most shared and saved content format across the campaign.

Timed the strongest conversion focused content for 3 to 5 days before the event, based on data showing that was the peak decision window for the target audience.

Discovered through geographic analysis that the Meta algorithm over indexed on France (lower CPM) instead of Germany (higher purchase intent), and recommended manual budget segmentation by region for future campaigns.

Created same day event wrap up content during the four day fair, building real time social proof and urgency.

Top Performing Content Formats

Reels with high energy hooks and direct CTAs (highest reach and shares)

Carousel posts explaining game mechanics (highest saves)

Event wrap up posts with real photos (highest engagement during the event)

Review compilation content (highest save rate overall)

Lessons and Recommendations Delivered

Corrected the conversion funnel by moving from bio links to direct Story and Reel link stickers.

Recommended investing in retargeting audiences and segmenting paid budgets geographically for future campaigns.

Proposed a content formula based on the winning Tug of War Reels format for ongoing organic growth.

Advised on profile optimization including Highlights structure and bio CTA clarity.