Random’s Game Plan for ‘Brisingr’

By John A. Sellers, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 8/14/2008

Now that the midnight parties for Breaking Dawn are over, attention now turns to the next major book of the season: Christopher Paolini’s Brisingr. The Knopf novel, third in the author’s Inheritance Cycle, will arrive September 20 (amid more than 2,500 midnight parties of its own) with a 2.5 million-copy first printing, the largest to date for Random House Children’s Books. Beginning with a kickoff event in New York City, Paolini will then embark on a 10-city national tour. To drum up excitement for the new title, Random House has launched Vroengard Academy, an Alternate Reality Experience (ARE). Vroengard Academy is an interactive online game that includes real-world components, and marks the first time the publisher has created such a promotion for one of its titles.

The game launched June 2, and more than 20,000 users signed up in the first three weeks; the number has since doubled to more than 41,000. “We’re really excited about that number,” says Linda Leonard, director of new media marketing at RHCB. “It’s definitely in line with where we wanted to go.” According to Leonard, there is a 45% return rate among users, which shows the number of players revisiting to the site to check their progress and complete weekly challenges. She adds that a return rate of this level is high for this kind of campaign, and that there is strong participation among girls, with a 60/40 split between male and female players.

In the game, users are first assigned to one of two teams, Sverd or Skölir (“Sword” or “Shield,” in the ancient language from the books), then seek out and decipher clues (online and off), solve riddles and puzzles in team and solo efforts, and share information gained along the way. Weekly sweepstakes distribute prizes such as t-shirts and signed copies to players chosen at random, and the grand prize is a trip to meet Paolini in his home state of Montana.

Leonard says that Random House’s marketing team had several goals in mind when brainstorming the promotion last fall. “We wanted to make this year a lead-up to Brisingr,” she says. “We knew we wanted to do something huge. We really tried to focus on the fans: What are they interested in? What would be exciting for them? And with the popularity of gaming, we wanted to bring in new fans who were interested in gaming but didn’t know the Inheritance books.”

To create the online world, Random enlisted the help of Deep Focus, an agency specializing in online marketing promotions, which has created campaigns for films including The Simpsons Movie, Kill Bill and Pan’s Labyrinth. The agency developed the storyline for the promotion, came up with the structure of the game and wrote copy, which was then vetted by Paolini and his editor, Michelle Frey. “[Deep Focus] really tapped into the enthusiasm for the series,” says Leonard.

Another piece of the puzzle: Paolini himself. “Having Christopher involved was really key for us,” says John Adamo, v-p of marketing at RHCB. “We recognized having that direct connection with the fan base is crucial.” In addition to helping with characters’ backstories and vetting the text used in the game, Paolini delivered a riddle for the game via an online video that, when decoded, would unlock exclusive content.

The events described in the game itself precede those in Paolini’s books, and the academy is set up as a school for Dragon Riders on an island off Alagaësia. “It’s almost a prequel-type scenario,” says Leonard. “Another great aspect to the game is the team-building we’ve seen take off.” (“Look forward to getting to know you & making new friends,” enthuses one player. “I love Christopher Paolini’s books! I can’t wait for the next one to come out!”) Each team has its own private Facebook page, as well as a forum where team members can share information.

Retailers, both online and brick-and-mortar,
can host Vroengard Academy runes,
which players decode on the game's Web site.

There is a “rune quest” component to the game as well, and for this Random has courted retailers. Posters and store displays, distributed to participating stores nationwide, contain different runes, which players must decode via the game site. “We wanted to get [retailers] involved on a grassroots level and hopefully drive some traffic into stores,” says Adamo, who added that they felt Vroengard Academy should be an “equal opportunity” event, with runes and materials available to stores regardless of size. “Our head of sales was adamant about having a level playing field for everybody,” he says. “Even though Barnes & Noble might sell more copies, we had to make sure it was equal for all.”

Other runes can be found on the sites of online retailers, such as Amazon, which hosts two exclusive runes on its Inheritance Cycle Store. Adamo points to the significant number of pre-orders for Brisingr on Amazon (though he could not disclose exact figures) as evidence that the series continues to find new fans. “I think we’ve [already]seen about the same number of pre-orders as we saw for Eldest [the second book in the series] on [its] on-sale date, which indicates that we’re getting new readers,” he says. “Hopefully we’ll see that number double by 9/20.”

During three promotional waves this summer, Random has distributed flash drives with exclusive Inheritance Cycle content.

Random has been advertising online and in print throughout the summer as well, on Web sites for Entertainment Weekly and ELLEgirl, among others, in an effort to reach a broad audience and promote recent editions of the first two Inheritance Cycle books, Eragon and Eldest. “The key was to have the game drive momentum,” says Adamo. “We looked at the whole calendar and spread things out.”

A two-week viral marketing campaign, which involved a “lost dog”-style teaser poster campaign, led up to the game’s launch. Once the game started, Random introduced three additional promotions in U.S. cities throughout the summer. During the first of these, sites in Austin and San Francisco were painted with Vroengard Academy murals, and street teams passed out 5,000 flash drives, which contained a “lost chapter” from Eragon, as well as an audio clip from Paolini. Online maps directed fans to the giveaway locations.

During two subsequent periods—one in mid-June and one earlier this month—10,000 additional flash drives were distributed at locations in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Boston and Chicago. The later flash drives contained additional unique series information: the third, for instance, included an excerpt from Brisingr, which could only be unlocked after solving a clue in the Vroengard Academy. As Leonard puts it, “We wanted to give the fan base content they could enjoy and interact with all summer, and really make this an event for them.”