In the mobile game War Dragons, players collect and breed (as the title suggests) dragons to fly in and wreck opponents in real-time battles. Developed by Pocket Gems, the game released a year ago on iOS, and has since been climbing Apple’s top-grossing charts with its vibrant community fighting over 183 million battles and raising more than 13 million dragons so far. The game recently debuted on Android, and it has a very special TV commercial and related promotional campaign to mark the occasion.
Created by renowned animator, J.J. Sedelmaier (the mind behind Beavis and Butt-head; Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law; and the Saturday TV Funhouse bits on Saturday Night Live), the humorous tongue-in-cheek commercial pokes fun at the Saturday morning cartoon style from the ’90s era by introducing a fake children’s show called Dragon Days. The show ends up having a very short run, as the peaceful land and its happy inhabitants are attacked by ferocious 3D creatures from War Dragons.
“Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to contrast the children’s programming we all grew up watching with the intensity of the gaming realm?!” said Sedelmaier in a press release. “On top of that, this was a wonderful chance to combine two animation techniques that have been fighting each other for decades anyway.”
The joke goes even further with an official Dragon Days website, which showcases the cancelled episodes and fates of the fictional characters. It even has a link to the show’s theme song, written by Grammy Award winners Adam Schlesinger and Steven Gold, which is almost sure to get stuck in people’s heads.
Chris Luhur, director of performance marketing at Pocket Gems, talks to [a]listdaily about having a little fun with the War Dragons promotion at the expense of many cartoon dragons.
How did J.J. Sedelmaier become involved with creating the War Dragons ad?
Our agency, Wexley School for Girls, were the ones who facilitated that. Once we had nailed down the creative concept of having our 3D dragons obliterating these cute cartoon characters, we knew that it would mesh perfectly with J.J.’s style. Luckily, he was available and interested in working with us.
What inspired the idea to match up ’90s era cartoons with 3D fire-breathing dragons?
One of the reasons people love playing War Dragons is that they get to be in control of this massive army of savage-looking dragons. The game has everything from three-headed monsters to undead wyverns. We thought a great way to showcase how cool and brutal our dragons were was to contrast them against fluffier, happy dragons that you’d probably find in a ’90s cartoon. We knew the hypothetical meeting of these dragons probably wouldn’t go great, and thus the commercial idea was born.
How did you come up with the inclusion of Watchdragondays.com?
A fun part of creatives like this is looking at ways you can expand the universe that you’ve created. J.J. and Wexley did such an awesome job making the Dragon Days characters that we knew it would be a huge missed opportunity not to have some more fun with it. Along with the site, we also made an Instagram account for the show, a fake wiki and sent out a fake press release about the Dragon Days massacre.
Any advice for War Dragons players picking the game up for the first time on Android?
The War Dragons community is really awesome and welcoming. New players should definitely join a guild to learn from their team members. Our forums, social media and Twitch channel are also great resources for newer players.