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Call of Duty: Conquiring net-new audiences

Call of Duty is one of the most famous war games in the world and has sold over 425 million copies to date.

The franchise itself has a cult-like global following, and its popularity spans way beyond the game into comic books, collectible figurines, toys and movies. 

Worldwide it has 335,200,000 online fans, so you could say that its audience is very broad. But it still has a huge growth potential. 

So who are the audiences this game has yet to capture? This is a question that should be asked by every brand with audiences as big as Call of Duty’s, to know what they need to do to continue to grow their audience.

To demonstrate how to conduct this exercise, of analyzing the audiences a brand has acquired, and has yet to acquire - we’re using SOPRISM. 

Specifically were analyzing everyone aged 18-65+, worldwide, who has an interest in Call of Duty: 

Audiense blog - Call of Duty: Conquiring net-new audiences - audience definition and scores

As you can see in the slide above, this audience is 335,200,000 people in size. 

Audiense blog - Call of Duty: Conquiring net-new audiences - audience

More specifically, this audience is predominantly male, age 18-34, who are in a relationship, and only have their highschool degree. 

Audiense blog - Call of Duty: Conquiring net-new audiences - top 10 countries

Based on the geolocation data above, we can conclude that Call of Duty has done a good job at capturing North and South American Audiences, as well as Australia. Where there still remains room for growth, is in the European, African, and Asian markets. 

To gain a clearer picture of what a typical Call of Duty fan looks like and go beyond demographic and geographic data, here is their main customer persona: 

Audiense blog - Call of Duty: Conquiring net-new audiences - persona

Herein this slide lies the power of SOPRISM because it portrays the customer in terms of their interests and passions. Yes, demographic and geographic location is important, but it's the interest data that fuels winning marketing campaigns and business ideas. 

To summarize, Call of Duty’s “Tom” customer persona is a 27-year-old single man who besides video games, has an interest in sports, especially basketball. He is also passionate about motorsports like Moto GP and Formula One. Tom also loved to listen to rap music and regularly attends music festivals. He is not especially drawn to Facebook and Instagram in general, however out of the two, his preference would be Instagram. Tom feels most comfortable wearing sportswear, sneakers, and riding his skateboard around the city. 

“Tom”: also has an affinity towards several different brands. On the automotive side, we can see they have a strong interest in Ford Motor Company and BMW. In terms of fashion brands, Adidas, Gucci and Louis Vuitton rank as the top three. Energy drinks are usually popular among gaming audiences, and Red Bull is this audience’s drink of choice. 

Besides Call of Duty, we can see that their top 3 games of choice are Fortnite, League of Legends, and Dota 2.

To view this audience’s top social, streaming, and media channels, click here for the full report. 

Now that we understand who Call of Duty’s main consumer base is aka who they’ve aimed to capture, it’s time to view who they haven’t yet acquired as customers. This data will help them to target these audiences, and ultimately grow their fan base even more.  

The way we’ve done this in SOPRISM is looked at the 16 most dominant customer personas that have a high affinity for Call of Duty, and within those personas, we’ve highlighted the segments with the highest growth potential. 

One persona identified was the “Festival Lover”

Audiense blog - Call of Duty: Conquiring net-new audiences - "festival lover" personaAudiense blog - Call of duty - festival lover

Within the “Festival Lover” persona, there is a segment of Women aged 26-44 who pose an opportunity here, because the acquisition potential is 11.9%. This means there is a potential to reach 6,033,300 people and turn them into Call of Duty fans. And the best way to reach this audience and target them is through their love of festivals and concerts. Call of Duty could use SOPRISM to dig even deeper into this segment and find out the top festivals and concerts this audience attends, and spend their ad dollars here. 

A second persona identified was the “Internet Celebrity Lover”:

Audiense blog - Call of duty - Internet celebrity loverAudiense blog - Audiense blog - Call of duty - Internet celebrity lover

This persona has a big interest in celebrities, influencers, and YouTubers. Within this persona, there is another segment of women aged 26-44 that also pose an opportunity for Call of Duty. The acquisition potential of this group is 33%, or 46,480, 500 people. The best way for Call of Duty to target this group is through partnerships with their top influencers, YouTubers, and celebrities. SOPRISM can unlock these insights as well, making sure they find the best-fit influencers for their marketing campaigns. 

Like any big named brand, with worldwide recognition, and a massive customer base - it’s important to always be searching for the audiences you have yet to capture. This is how you guarantee that your brand continues to grow. SOPRISM allows you to uncover those audiences, that have yet to be acquired, and it gives you the insights you need to target them and turn them into customers too.

Sign up for SOPRISM to expand your audience, and view the full breadth of Call of Dutty insights here.