The Campaign

Fans follow every move of their favorite celebrities. We first caught the attention of Wu’s massive block of fans by posting a picture of him with a close cropped haircut and a “news” article titled “Kris Wu Is Enlisting,” but the biggest surprise lay in waiting. As fans skim the article, Wu begins speaking from his photo, disappears, and then leaps back onto the screen to tear up the text. Then he tells readers that he wants to tell them the truth about his enlisting by phone, at which time readers receive a FaceTime call from “Kris.” Once they answer, he tells them that he has enlisted, not in the army, but in Tencent’s online smartphone 3D first-person shooter We Fire. This surprising twist has prompted millions of shares on social media.

Creative Execution

We wanted Wu to endorse the We Fire game, but not by an ordinary method. As a busy celebrity, he had only one hour to give to us for shooting, so we needed a plan to translate that hour of work time into a maximum number of fans reached. We spent a week planning the fake news story and special effects, after which we placed the “story” in a real news feed. The “story” could be shared to all social media platforms. The interactive experience – a celebrity emerging from his photo and making a FaceTime call to his fans – spurred millions of shares and made the ad an overnight sensation.

Within 48 hours, this “news story” generated 4,277,248 unique visitors (UV) and 7,548,239 page visits (PV), with 468,786 users sharing the story. Over 40 media outlets reported on the story of Wu’s enlistment, and copycat ads followed closely thereafter. Within a week, 236,726 users downloaded the game after reading the “story.” Three months after the ad’s launch, six percent of new players claimed to have been attracted to the game by the Wu ad.

We Fire is an online first-person shooter game that targets young users. Wu has over 20 million followers on social media, most of whom are young. Our strategy was to use Wu’s star power to attract players to the game. In concrete terms, we wanted to create an HTML5 experience to bring him directly in contact with his fans. Our approach was to grab attention with the news of Wu’s enlistment, and then stun readers with an interactive experience with their beloved megastar, who then calls them to join the game.