The challenge

GAME approached us with a near impossible challenge - make their most viral brand campaign go viral AGAIN. Oh, and this time, make it work for search. The Christmas Tinner campaign was originally run in 2013, but back then it didn't have any SEO benefit. This time they wanted links, with a focus on boosting their ‘gaming chairs’ section organically with just five days to launch (making sure we get results in time for Christmas).

The idea

How do we make a previous viral campaign go viral again? We needed a new hook. We created the new vegan and vegetarian versions of the Christmas Tinner - and launched them to press 30 days before Christmas. We created a landing page on GAME’s site showcasing the new tinners, alongside the 2013 version.

In just five days, we made real tins packed with real ingredients, filming behind the scenes footage of us eating it to tease the campaign on social media and gathering images for launch. Press releases were sent out to national media, while we also engaged with vegan and vegetarian communities on Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter to make the campaign spread far and wide.

The results

After just one week of promotion and a feature on The Drum and Ladbible, the campaign was picked up in 14 countries, generating a huge buzz globally with over 333k shares on social media. We got 159 links in international press, driving 85,000 people to the landing page organically (no paid whatsoever!).

On social media our content was viewed 241,500 times, with famous YouTubers like Beard Meats Food talking about the new tins, while even TV royalty like The One Show, Jonathan Ross, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in America got in touch to talk about our campaign.

The campaign made so much noise that we increased GAME’s brand awareness by 13% in just four weeks. The links impacted GAME’s visibility, helping their gaming chairs section rank for over 400 keywords just in time for Christmas, having previously only ranked for one.

The Christmas Tinner landing page was the third biggest landing page behind the homepage and the Black Friday page, and became the brand’s most successful link strategy. The campaign worked so well that GAME recruited us to be their long term partners and introduced us to the wider group, working on House of Fraser, Flannels, and more.

We’ve won 10 awards in total (so far), including Outreach Campaign of the Year and Retail Content Campaign of the Year at the UK content awards 2020. We even got shortlisted for a Clio - the first search agency to ever be up for that award.

Years later, it still gets shared every Christmas, continuing to drive traffic long after the campaign is over.

Winner winner, Christmas Tinner.