Metacore title Mege Mansion has seen significant growth over the past several years, thanks in part to a large-scale and innovative advertising campaign. Beginning with computer generated ads, the company transitioned to a live action format, leveraging the talent of Oscar winning actress Kathy Bates.
The company continued this strategy in its latest campaign, starring The Last of Us and The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal in the role of Detective Tim Rockford. This campaign has proven massively successful, stepping up the quality and production standards of mobile gaming ads and bringing the game to the attention of new audiences by successfully utilising the talents and profile of one of today’s most popular actors.
With the latest ad in the campaign now live, we spoke to Metacore’s VP of brand marketing Sandra Fenyo regarding the campaign, and what we can expect next from the company.
PocketGamer.biz Tell us about your role at Metacore:
Sandra Fenyo: As VP of brand marketing, I am responsible for both the Metacore brand and each of our multiple game brands, including Merge Mansion.
What were your expectations when it came to this campaign?
While it’s still too early to draw conclusions on all of the impacts of the campaign, a central goal for all of our game marketing is to speak to our audience and start conversations around the game, its story and its central characters. Based on fans’ reactions to the campaign and the stir it’s caused, it definitely seems like we’ve met if not exceeded those expectations.
We’re always looking for new and exciting ways to entertain our audiences, so you never know where the Merge Mansion story will go next.
Sandra Fenyo
Why did you choose Pedro Pascal to front this campaign?
Although detective Tim Rockford isn’t a central character in the game, we were adamant about working with someone that understood and could relate to Merge Mansion’s story and characters – and Pedro understood our vision from the get-go. What’s more, Pedro having played a detective in previous roles made him the perfect match for us.
You recently released the final video in this campaign – why did you decide to implement such a strong narrative into your advertising strategy?
Merge Mansion is a story-driven game, so it only made sense to lean on that approach in our advertising strategy as well. We wanted to bring Merge Mansion’s narrative to life outside of the game – which we did, with Pedro Pascal’s help. The whole story is centred around family drama and mystery, which are both broadly relatable topics that are loved by many, and thus translate perfectly into a creative campaign such as this one.
Following the series success there have been calls for this to be a real TV series or movie (with Pedro starring, of course). How do feel about this?
We’ve definitely heard those calls, both now and with the previous live action campaign we filmed with Kathy Bates in 2021. And well, let’s just say that we’re always looking for new and exciting ways to entertain our audiences, so you never know where the Merge Mansion story will go next.
What can other companies learn from your approach to advertising?
There’s probably no universal recipe for success that works for all game companies, but I think that listening to your audience and making them the starting point of your marketing – and really, not just marketing but the entire game’s positioning work – is something you can’t go wrong with. We love to challenge ourselves every day to do something entertaining, immersive and exceptional for our players and future players.
What can we expect next from Metacore?
We’re gearing up to publish our second game later this year and are working on multiple new titles simultaneously, so expect some exciting updates from us within the next few months. As for Merge Mansion, you can expect lots of new twists, turns and layers of lore surrounding Grandma Ursula’s story.
