Call of Duty: Hack in Black

Teasing a future blockbuster with unprecedented uses of Snapchat and Instagram The Challenge: To reveal the latest Call of Duty game, Black Ops 3, Activision wanted to specifically target the millions of gamers still playing the previous Black Ops 2 title every day, in a way that was native to the game experience and would immediately grab their attention. ​​​​​​​The Solution: Working with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 developer Treyarch, the first ever in-game integration with Snapchat manifested with the appearance of a “hack” into the Black Ops 2 online multiplayer maps. Snapcodes were embedded into the game itself, hidden in various locations. Players who found and scanned these images with Snapchat were taken to a mysterious Snapchat account where the first clues about the new game were waiting to be decoded. A series of cryptic images were Snapped out to hundreds of thousands of new Snapchat followers. Then, clever fans deduced that if you ran the images through an Instagram filter, a hidden image was revealed—building more buzz and excitement for the latest entry into the franchise. The Results: Over 6M engagements were generated with the tease, with an additional 50M views on YouTube. In just 5 days, the campaign helped generate over 1.3B impressions and 700K social mentions, making it the biggest Call of Duty game reveal ever—and making headlines in the mainstream press.