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Diablo is hard. The enemies are brutal. The dungeons are terrifying. The challenges are frustrating. But mercenaries make things a little easier. It’s like playing Diablo with a friend. The load is a little lighter and the game is a lot more fun, so you feel more confident in taking on hell.
What if we remind Players of the joy slaying demons brings them?
Mercenaries are a solo player’s best friend, so we reimagined them as “SlayPals” — diabolically demented dolls reminiscent of everyone’s favorite childhood companion toys from the 80s and 90s.
Then we gave SlayPals their own commercial parody, complete with a catchy jingle.
Along with the hero spot, we created various social posts to help extend the campaign.
We created exclusive “SlayPals” merchandise with custom campaign illustrations that were available on the Blizzard Gear Store. The t-shirts represented the first time Diablo has created a Capsule Collection of merchandise for a campaign, rather than the game title.
The SlayPals campaign is among the top post-launch assets for Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, driving 800k+ impressions across all social platforms and, on YouTube specifically, saw engagement rates around 11% which are well above channel averages for Diablo. In addition, social profiles were flooded with player engagement with comments asking about where they can purchase their own SlayPals.
Impressions Across All Social Platforms
YouTube Engagement Rate
Ad Age
Earned Media Impressions
