Diablo Blood Harvest

Background

Diablo IV unleashed hell in culture to drum up excitement for its release in the summer of 2023. From grotesquely themed food partnerships and immortalizing players to perfectly timed billboards and devilish celeb collabs, people were talking about Diablo.

And now, Diablo IV was gearing up to launch a new season, The Season of Blood, and needed to drum up excitement with Diablo fans and draw intrigue with gamers that hadn’t yet dove into the world of Diablo.

So what was this new season? The Season of Blood.

The Season of Blood would be a vampiric-themed season releasing near Halloween. Diablo needed a social activation that would hype up the new season in a bloody fun way.

Idea

Leveraging the game's lore, specifically, the new vampire antagonist Lord Zir, who is summoned through blood, the campaign invited Diablo fans to participate in a blood donation drive.

The "Diablo Blood Harvest" turned virtual blood into a life-saving resource, making the act of donating blood a thematic extension of the game's narrative. As players donated, they not only engaged with the game's story on a deeper level but also contributed to a critical cause, helping to replenish national blood reserves.

This fusion of interactive storytelling and real-world impact created a compelling, immersive experience for players, aligning their love for the game with a meaningful societal contribution.

Strategy

Diablo fans get excited when Diablo plays into the themes of Diablo. If Season of Blood is about blood and vampires, that’s what we could leverage.

We turned to the game to find inspiration, and in Lord Zir’s name, we found it.

Literally.

Lord Zir, the new big bad in-game, who can only be summoned through blood because he’s a vampire.

Blood became the key.

So what can you do with blood besides drink it?

Blood’s not only a necessary sacrifice to feed Lord Zir in Diablo IV, but also dire to keeping people alive IRL.

And the United States was facing a serious blood shortage, the national blood supply was below 25%in reserves according to the Red Cross. Over the past 20 years, blood donations through the Red Cross have fallen roughly 40%.

That became Diablo’s space to play.

Execution

The execution "Blood Harvest" was strategically planned around the Halloween release of Diablo IV’s "Season of Blood."

It was implemented over a month-long period, aligning with the game's launch and a season synonymous with blood and vampires, enhancing thematic relevance.

The primary placement was through online platforms and gaming communities where Diablo's audience is most active, supplemented by targeted social media campaigns and influencers within the gaming community to increase reach and engagement.

A specially designed web portal facilitated the integration of donation efforts with gameplay, allowing players to log their donations and receive in-game rewards for their real-world actions.

This bridged the virtual and actual worlds, turning each donation into a heroic act that mirrored the game's narrative.

The scale of the campaign was nationwide, involving partnerships with blood donation centers across the U.S., and successfully generating nearly 1.4k confirmed blood donations, significantly impacting the national blood reserve levels.

Results

Over a month-long period, Diablo fans were encouraged to donate their blood, which resulted in almost 10,000 entries and roughly 1.4k confirmed donations. One donation of blood can save up to 3 lives, meaning that with almost 1.4k confirmed entries, Diablo fans were saving 4,200 lives.

While fans couldn’t actually sacrifice their blood to raise Lord Zir, they could make a small IRL sacrifice to help fill up the nation’s blood reserves and leave more victims for Lord Zir in the future save some lives.