Summary

To mark the launch of Apex Legends’ Season 21: Upheaval, Biborg was briefed by Respawn UK to deliver the nation’s first official Apex Legends community-centric, in-person event – the Chaos Cup. Having taken place at New Meta Gaming Arena in London on June 7th, the Chaos Cup kicked off with a friendly team deathmatch showdown, featuring x8 content creators and x16 fans, and ended with a prize-filled community party to celebrate the season and players.

Challenge

Season 21 represented a step up for the Apex Legends brand globally, and along with big updates to features and gameplay, Respawn had ambitions to refresh their marketing efforts in the UK, by taking a more local-first approach. Our challenge was complex. We had to highlight the product updates without leveraging traditional advertising channels, like paid media. We also were tasked with finding a way to engage the local community of players in an authentic and fun way.

Idea

Our solution was to plan and deliver a community centric mega-event that was informed by the chaotic ‘Upheaval’ season theme and features, ensuring it felt accessible to regular, everyday players which was in contrast to the many previously organized ALGS events, which are known for being hyper competitive and inaccessible.

Introducing the Chaos Cup - the UK’s first ever IRL community event that was made up of two key parts.

First, the Chaos Cup began with a live broadcast, TDM-showdown featuring x8 content creators and x16 members of their community. Prior to the event, we ran an organic promotional campaign, leveraging the global PlayApex social channels that kicked off our content creators’ recruitment efforts, which were performed via social media and streaming platforms.

After a very successful recruitment round, we changed gears to focus on both promoting both the live stream, where we leveraged a paid TikTok campaign to drive awareness and views, and the post-showdown after party, which was promoted further by partnering with endemic press partners.

After the stream and party had taken place, we planned a BTS / recap round of content. For our content creators, we asked them to create a TikTok post that summarized the day’s events from their unique POV, which we also supported with the help of TikTok’s Spark Ad feature.

Sweet Anita:

ThatPunchKid:

We also captured and produced a BTS recap that was posted on the PlayApex global channels to showcase the energy we were able to generate and prove to the UK Apex Legends community that Respawn was serious about delivering a quality experience to local players.

Results

The results were outstanding! Participant and community sentiment was at an all time high. And by using the campaign hashtag, #ApexLegendsChaosCup, we were able to track all the content and feedback people had, as well as the organic and paid viewership of all Chaos Cup related content. Below are but a few of the amazing performances (within the public domain) we can share. We also achieve incredible results in CCVs and minutes watched, surpassing the benchmarks we set!

3.8 MILLION CONTENT VIEWS ACROSS THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN 1.07 MILLION STREAM VIEWS