Looks like the forum naysayers were right: There will be no Boom Beach update Jan. 15. Supercell teased us something big was coming almost three weeks ago with the relatively minor “The Last Crustacean” update, and judging from the massive advertising campaign that sprung up in the weeks leading up to Jan. 15, they weren’t messing around.
Supercell has taken a different tack than they do typically with whatever they’re releasing this Jan. 15, and have managed to keep their silence surprisingly well. This represents a major break from typical Supercell policy. Usually, Supercell makes an appearance in the forums a week before a release, and then sends out regularly timed sneak peeks explaining the release’s new features in the days leading up to it going live.
This time however Supercell contracted the help of Madison Avenue firm Barton F. Graf 9000 in creating a teaser-based media campaign. Their efforts have spawned across almost every medium imaginable, from YouTube video ads to the ESPN Warriors-Cavaliers NBA game on Christmas Day. Hundreds of taxicabs in Las Vegas have been adorned with Dr. T’s smiling face and the Boom Beach publicity has even reached into the subterranean tunnels of Montreal.
The Barton F. Graf 9000 team who worked with Supercell to construct the Dr. T campaign may have inadvertently confirmed that no Boom Beach update will be coming Jan. 15 during a group interview with AdAge.
"We were working together all the time, not just with the marketing people but also the game team," Barton F. Graf 9000 Executive Creative Director Ian Reichentha said to AdAge. "With other [clients] from the past, I wouldn't have talked with the people actually making the product, and with this we did that a lot."
According to AdAge, the media campaign culminates in an in-game event on Jan. 15 that “hinges on Dr. T's new mega weapon.” Due to the way the Apple iOS App Store approval process works, it would have been impossible to organize the same level of synchronization between a media campaign and a major update.
"For me,” Barton F. Graf 9000 Creative Director Matty Smith said to AdAge. “What's most exciting about this campaign is that we actually integrated the idea with their gameplay for Boom Beach so that the campaign ends in-game,"
If Supercell’s big surprise does indeed turn out to be an event, it would mean that the event data has already been bundled inside a previous update. Now, the fact that the last update was titled “The Last Crustacean,” and the fact that one user managed to trick Boom Beach into sending them a notification stating that “Dr. T has landed! Mega Crab Rises!” when they set their device calendar ahead artificially, means that the most likely scenario is a giant crab popping out of the ocean to come cause trouble alongside Dr. T.
The question is how global the event will actually be. Nobody is quite sure if the event is going to be taskforce vs. taskforce, or if taskforces will be forced to work together to tackle Dt. T’s challenge. One thing is known for sure though. Hype and anticipation are at an all time high for Boom Beach.
