Bluetracker
Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.
Janitor Leoric: An Ad Retrospective and a Betrayal
First off, for those of you who are somehow unaware, the Janitor King skin still isn't in the game. Seriously. I just checked.
I was inspired by a post by /u/solow89 relinking the most beautiful skin concept I'd ever seen (https://twitter.com/BlizzHeroes/status/749981228263149569) and commentors on that thread suggesting it should be made into an ad. So I did it.
The ad (https://www.reddit.com/comments/8j8276/are_you_a_blizzard_employee_did_you_know_the/) went up on 5/14 and ran until 5/31. Over that time period it received 2,000+ upvotes, generated 300,000+ impressions, and 4,000+ clicks for a total campaign spend of $178.46. eCPM (effective cost per 1,000 impressions) was $0.59, CTR (click through rate) was 1.34% and CPC (cost per click) was $0.04. This was a very effective campaign in terms of both reaching a large audience (CPM) and demonstrated interest in the ad (CPC), both of those numbers are quite low and I made no effort to optimize the campaign once started.
Now what can all that number mumbo jumbo tell us? Reddit Ads lets us break it down by country so let's take a look at which countries are the most interested in Janitor Leoric. The numbers below show what % of the country who saw the ad then clicked on the ad (CTR).
- India: 2.85%
- Taiwan: 2.60%
- China: 2.35%
- United Arab Emirates: 2.19%
- Hong Kong: 2.12%
- Korea: 2.06%
- Mexico: 2.02%
- United States: 1.93%
- Israel: 1.88%
- Japan: 1.81%
- Russia: 1.75%
Clearly some regional preferences emerge. Almost the entirety of the Asia server is represented in the top 10 which makes sense considering the skin's origin plus the US and Mexico. How about those who were the least interested?
- Finland: 0.72%
- Australia: 0.87%
- Norway: 0.87%
- New Zealand: 0.87%
- Hungary: 0.99%
- Netherlands: 1.01%
- Sweden: 1.02%
- Germany: 1.07%
- Croatia: 1.10%
- Czech Republic: 1.10%
Wow. Just wow. There is a clear regional divide here where Asia, North America, and the Middle East exhibit a sense of humor and Europe and ANZ do not. Don't @ me. It also has become increasingly clear that the key decision-maker at Blizzard for skins is from Finland.
These regional differences showed almost immediately and if this was a real campaign, it could be optimized by explicitly removing those countries/regions but my overall goal was broad awareness of Janitor Leoric so that it would never die.
Reddit also provides upvotes/downvotes by country though the data seems to populate slowly. Overall, I only have ~1,000 upvotes and ~160 downvotes to look at (out of the 2,000+ upvotes it received). Because of this I only have one interesting data point to share and it's that Canadians are secretly assholes.
The two largest countries in terms of impressions (or times the post was seen) are the United States and Canada. The United States had ~54,000 impressions and Canada had ~27,000. Here are the upvote totals:
- United States: 444
- Canada: 18
Now maybe you're ready to make excuses for the Canadians. Maybe the data hasn't populated yet, you say. Maybe only the upvotes came in so far, you say. Turn away now sweet, innocent child, for Pandora's Box cannot be unopened. Let's look at the downvotes:
- United States 59
- Canada: 13
In terms of downvotes per total votes, Canada downvoted 40% of the time and the next closest hater, the entire EU, sits at 25%. It's not even close. Sure they still gave Janitor Leoric a net 5 upvotes but the hypocrisy is sickening. If the top comment isn't a real Canadian apologizing and offering to take me out for some Timbits and a Kinder Surprise Egg (heavily supervised of course), I will lose all faith in my home and native land.
TLDR;
The ad ran for two weeks, 300,000+ people saw it with 4,000+ clicks, EU and ANZ don't want the skin but Asia and NA do (minus the secret Canadian jerks). Overall I hope everyone enjoyed seeing the ad and happy to answer any questions about the ad or the Canadian Betrayal of 2018.
KinaBREW
Impressive.