Scopely’s latest Monopoly Go! ads feature Hollywood stars and friendship

Scopely today revealed its new advertising campaign for runaway hit mobile title, Monopoly Go! Featuring several recognizable actors, the “Friendship Pays” campaign follows the adventures of three players in “GOville,” where the real world is layered with the Monopoly Go! universe. The cross-platform campaign features over 20 original videos, created in partnership with ad agency Omelet and directed by Henry Scholfield. Scopely debuted the new campaign this week.

“Friendship Pays” stars Jason Momoa, Keke Palmer and Chris Pratt as the players who embark on hijinks inspired by Monopoly Go!’s gameplay. They’re guided on their adventures by Mr. Monopoly, here voiced for the first time by Will Ferrell — Scopely also confirmed that Ferrell will be Mr. Monopoly’s voice for this campaign and future endeavors as well.

The actors all expressed their enthusiasm for the game and campaign, with Palmer (a.k.a. “Keke GoGo”) saying in a statement, “I love playing games with my siblings and friends, and let me tell you honey, when I play games, I play to win. I’m so happy to team up with Monopoly Go!, a game that is all about camaraderie and excitement and, of course, your daily dose of friendly competition.”

Jason Momoa (a.k.a. “Momoney”) added, “My approach to playing MONOPOLY GO! is similar to how I play the bass…creating harmony to bring everyone together for a good time. I’m so stoked to be collaborating with MONOPOLY Go! because playing with friends is my favorite pastime, and who better to team up with than Keke, Chris, and Mr. Monopoly himself.”

Who built GOville and where’d these players come from?

GamesBeat spoke with Jamie Berger, Scopely’s SVP of marketing for Monopoly Go!, about how the ad campaign came about, and how the ad campaign came to be, and the creative decisions behind bringing in Hollywood talent to the game’s world. According to Berger, the campaign was in development for a year, when Scopely began to consider TV-level advertising for the game following its explosion in popularity.

“We’re firm believers that Monopoly Go! is a triple-A brand in the sense of quality and scale and global awareness, and we wanted to treat the brand and the game that way, with the talent and the quality and scale of production,” said Berger. “We also strongly believed it shouldn’t just be a ‘TV campaign.’ It needed to be something comprehensive that could live on all platforms.”

The idea behind the campaign that Scopely dreamed up with Omelet, says Berger, was that friendship was Monopoly Go!’s most important commodity. “What we liked about ‘Friendship Pays’ was that ultimately, what we are selling is that our biggest feature are your friends. The biggest feature that we want to get people excited about isn’t any individual element of the game itself, but that the game is best enjoyed when you’re playing with others… There’s this kind of crazy roller coaster you go through with your friends, where you’re both bankrupting each other and working together at the same time that we wanted to bring to life.”

Pratt (a.k.a. “Extra Chrispy”) echoed this sentiment in his own statement about the game, saying, “Monopoly Go! is all about playing with friends, which we don’t get to do enough of in our busy lives. It’s been fun to team up with a game that is so social and provides opportunities to go on zany adventures with friends — while knocking down their properties and charging them rent. And I’ve learned that Keke and Jason are fierce competitors! The moment they had an opportunity to take all my Monopoly money, they did!”

The value of triple-A advertising

GamesBeat also asked Berger about the value of an ad campaign like “Friendship Pays” for existing players — of which Monopoly Go! has quite a few. The game was downloaded over 150 million times within its first year, and at one point had 10 million daily active users. It also generated $2 billion in revenue within 10 months of its launch. The mobile game became so popular that it eventually became its own separate board game from the original Monopoly.

Berger said, “Of course we want new players. But the other component of success is that our current players enjoy the creative and it motivates them to play more or share the ad with their friends. One of the most important elements of this campaign is we want to encourage current players to invite their friends into the game. It’s always the number one and most important source of our long-term players is people who came in because a friend was playing the game.”

Another part of it was encouraging lapsed players to return, he says. “A big part of the value proposition of these kinds of campaigns is they may reach people who maybe they left the game six months ago. Life happened and they left the game. What we find is campaigns like this are very effective at bringing those players back into the game and making them kind of say, ‘You know what, I was having a good time. And I wonder if my friends still playing the game.’”

Berger also emphasized the campaign is global, and Scopely is tailoring the campaign to fit players across the globe, even finding different voices for Mr. Monopoly that appeal to players in a certain region. The “Friendship Pays” ad campaign rolls out across digital platforms, social media and television starting this week.