Answering the call
The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) is a military charity with a mission to entertain and inform members of the UK Armed Forces and their families, wherever they are in the world.
When BFBS launched its first ever military esports league, they needed to generate sign ups among a very targeted, specific group of people.
No pressure, then.
BFBS already knew how to create content that resonated with its audience. Its organic social activity was performing well and generating strong reach, but the launch of a brand-new military esports league called for something bigger.
The target was ambitious: 1,000 registrations in three months.
BFBS needed to reach as many relevant people within the military community as possible, while working within a fixed campaign budget. That meant expanding beyond organic content and using paid social to put the league in front of the right people.
There was another complication. The audience wasn’t sitting neatly inside one postcode, demographic or interest group. BFBS needed paid advertising that could reach military communities across the country, including people located around military bases, while extending the campaign across Meta and TikTok.
As Head of Social Media Jackie Collins explains:
“We’d created some really great organic content and seen a lot of success in terms of organic reach, but we needed someone who specialised in paid-for advertising to really help us reach our goals.”
Enter Dark Horse.
Dark Horse worked with BFBS to understand the audience, the difficulties involved in reaching military personnel and families, the three-month deadline and the budget available.
The Paid Social campaign was built around reaching military communities through Meta and TikTok, including geo-targeting around relevant military locations and continually optimising the advertising as performance data came in.
The objective was simple: Get qualified people onto the tournament platform and get them registered.
There were problems to solve along the way too. During the campaign, BFBS’s TikTok account was banned as a result of the military-related content it was publishing. But Dark Horse worked with BFBS to resolve the problem and helped get the account reinstated.
The original target was 1,000 sign-ups within three months. BFBS finished with: Just under 1,400 registrations
That’s roughly 40% above the original target.
Better still: Only half of the allocated campaign budget was required.
BFBS didn’t need to throw more money at the target. Dark Horse beat it while spending substantially less.
And what began as a one-off paid social project became an ongoing partnership between BFBS and Dark Horse.
Mission accomplished.
3.37%
conversion rate from 9m impressions generated
£28.05
combined cost per aquisition across Meta and TikTok
50%
of budget needed to exceed target by 40%
Globis are Japan’s largest business school, delivering MBA programs and corporate training as well as investing in startups worldwide. Their goal is to spread ‘kokorozashi’ to the world; the long-term aspiration to find one’s own mission in life. Globis were experiencing a serious lack of brand awareness in Europe, and approached Dark Horse for SEO support in sharing their mission and reaching as many people as possible.
813%
increase in organic conversions
They haven’t got mortgages so why not take their savings instead of Netflix. Paid Social so startlingly revolutionary that it could make Gen Z vote Tory with Kirsty Allsop as PM.
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