Squad Busters was a big deal. Supercell, the Finish game maker of five of the most popular mobile gaming franchises, hadn’t released a new game in a while and expectations were high. At the same time, the market conditions were terrible: a saturated and even contracting mobile gaming market paired with social scrutiny over addictive in-game purchases. Not a lot of fun.

The game, however, was a lot of fun. A genre-bending mashup bringing together the best of Supercell’s IP into a fast-paced, super accessible game where players battle each other with their squads of different characters. Each brings unique skills giving you an edge in the highly entertaining clashes. And, in a fun little twist, you could play Squad Busters not just against other players around the world but also against your own gang of (soon to be ex-)friends.

Supercell’s party action mobile game, Squad Busters, launched globally with a star-studded commercial featuring Chris Hemsworth, Christina Ricci, Ken Jeong, Will Arnett and Auli’i Cravalho.

The launch trailer saw the actors take on the personalities of iconic Supercell game characters that feature in the mobile game giant’s latest smash hit.

The beginning of the film sees a man woken in his bed by Masked Singer’s Ken Jeong, starring as an eccentric Chicken, and seeing five characters from Squad Busters surrounding him. Hemsworth features as the mighty Barbarian King, alongside Ricci’s dark presence as Witch, Arnett as friendly lumberjack Greg and Cravalho as the sweet, shotgun-wielding Shelly.

The celebrity squad then embark on their mission to bring fun to their player’s life; following him from morning to night. In a series of comical scenes, directed by Jody Hill, the cast accompanies our gamer to a job interview, into a toilet cubicle, and cram inside a car to give a Carpool Karaoke-style rendition of Nickelback classic ‘How You Remind Me’.

The Hollywood gang, while quipping about Ricci’s skeleton-summoning staff, encounter another player’s squad whose characters are played by Internet sensations including TikTok superstar Bella Poarch as Witch, real-life woodcutter Thoren Bradley as Greg, lip-syncing legend Gabriela Moura as Shelly and YouTube extraordinaire ZHC as Chicken.

Squad Busters is Supercell’s first global game launch in over five years and has been highly anticipated–quickly reaching 40 million pre-registrations, making it the fastest-ever mobile game ever..

The goal was clear: Squad Busters was supposed to bring in a new cohort of players into the Supercell universe. Not your conventional mobile gamer, but more casual players that weren’t just necessarily looking for a new game to play. They were looking for entertainment.

We didn’t just need a campaign for a mobile game. We needed to make Squad Buster a blockbuster entertainment property. And instead of lying about what the game is about – an established trope in mobile game marketing – we wanted to tell the story about the game: how life is more fun when you assemble an unlikely crew around you: squad up!

The thought of assembling an unlikely crew informed every piece of marketing – and allowed us to tap into the various passions and interests of our mass audience: film, comedy, esports, etc. It gave us multiple angles to tease and tell the franchise’s story during the biggest cultural tentpole moments in the most relevant ways: from the Championsleage finale to Jimmy Fallon’s show. We wanted Squad Up! to become an invitation to casual players to have a bit more fun – and to download the game. Of course.

A blockbuster game deserves a blockbuster campaign. To dramatise the truth of the game that an unlikely squad makes for more fun we brought the main characters from the game into the real world where they made the life of an average guy more fun. At the heart of the campaign sat a five minute launch film featuring an all-star Squad starring Chris Hemsworth, Christina Ricci, Will Arnett and Ken Yeong. Ultimately, they clash with another squad – that looks suspiciously like them, starring some of the world’s biggest influencers. The unlikely squads launch into an epic battle – and set the campaign off to the races.

Our protagonists extended the narrative into their channels and communities, reaching new audiences that a mobile game otherwise wouldn’t have reached, while our film played out in different lengths across multiple touchpoints, down to reaction GIFs prompting people to download.

The internet was in pieces with laughter, brimming with anticipation, and just couldn’t get enough of our in-game characters.

- During the campaign period the Squad Busters social channels gained 1m new followers
- The internal launch download record was busted by 400% and the companies fastest release to reach 5m downloads
- Squad Busters was the most downloaded game in 122 countries on launch day
- And people had a tonne of fun sending their squads into the arena.