Our Work

Featured

Brand Stories

Adobe

Microsoft

Activision

FX Networks

Naked Juice

Case Studies

Reigniting Brands

Translating Geek Speak

Launching Products

Marketing TV and Film

Engaging with the Brand

By Vertical

By Solution

Brands & Clients

Awards

GuitarHero.com: Global Franchise Portal + Community

300%25 increase in online sales
500%25 increase in video engagement
1M %2b GH Facebook fans

Every minute, 100,000 Guitar Hero songs are played in the 16-million instrument-game playing households. Since it’s launch in 2005, the Guitar Hero fan-base has grown from rockstar groupies to pop-loving tweens, tech-newbie “Wii moms,” country folk and every music lover in-between.

With the release of Guitar Hero 5, Activision wanted an online destination that would appeal to all its divas, while facilitating digital interaction, global community integration, user personalization and product sales. This new, worldwide social hub would also double as a 24/7 one-stop-shop for everything Guitar Hero. So, we rolled up our sleeves and dove right in like Jim Morrison at a Doors concert.

Because 90% of gaming conversations happen outside of a franchise’s portal, we integrated popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube as a way to distribute news, updates, video, user comments and worldwide community chatter. This helps keep the conversation within the confines of the hub without alienating the already-popular forums. We also adopted a new rating system for songs, games and instruments that allows users to mark their musical preferences with a rockin’ “iLike button,” which encourages simple participation, drives conversation and increases camaraderie.

In order to further user creativity, we built “My Guitar Hero Experience,” which allows users to design a personal dashboard that displays performance stats, tournaments, friends, groupies and other profile information. We then went a step further with our state-of-the-art Streamlined Console Linking Process to facilitate user communication and the purchasing of songs and GH products.

The “What’s New” section highlights the awesome music selection with user favorites, a detailed Guitar Hero music catalog and downloadable music charts.

The launch of Guitar Hero’s new global franchise hub brought an instant 50% increase in site registration and a 200% increase in site traffic. Adoption of the “iLike button” definitely drove interest among fans, as they played over 20 million songs within the first two weeks of the site’s launch and increased their video engagement by 500%. By combining the “iLike” system with the two-click purchasing process we saw a 300% rise in sales of Guitar Hero products through online retail merchants. And with over 1 million GH Facebook fans from around the world, devotees can continue to build relationships and talk rock all day, everyday.

All this in just six weeks!

"Their vision and creative leadership has helped our games launch with ease and excitement."

Carlson Choi Director of Interactive Marketing