How to reach over million downloads of an application in 11 months, engage users, so they would create over 60% of product content and create a new form of cooperation between brands and influencers? Learn how MaturaToBzdura creators cleverly answered the requests of their viewers and created an additional method of monetising their channel.

How did it start?

MaturaToBzdura is a Polish comedy YouTube channel. Its main premise is to ask people met on the streets simple science questions to prove that school system is flawed and teaches nothing (they mainly ridicule the “matura” exam, taken after finishing high school). Viewers of MaturaToBzdura did not believe that people examined during the YouTube episodes really lacked so much basic knowledge. The fans wanted the creators of the series to visit them in various Polish cities and ask similar questions. There were so many such requests that the creators decided to satisfy their viewers' expectations by creating a mobile application.

What is Quiz House?

Quiz House — a project of Adam Drzewicki and Piotr Dybski, creators of “MaturaToBzdura” — came to existence in July 2017. It is a mobile app that combines entertainment and education. Everyone can check their knowledge thanks to featured quizzes and play against any opponent, even the creators of MaturaToBzdura themselves. The game has recently passed a point of million downloads on Android.

The fans appreciated functions, which other similar Polish mobile applications lacked — a large number of categories, the option of creating your own quizzes, and the possibility of playing in real time. Quiz House offers over 110 thousand questions in over 100 different categories. Its players are active and help to expand the content base — it was they who created over 70 thousand questions from the fields they are interested in: from the TV show “Stranger Things”, through Minecraft game, to academic quiz on Mechatronics. That resulted in high engagement — in the 11 months since its premiere the game has been played over 100 million times.

How did the application gain downloads and inspire user activity?

The main success factors, due to which the application gained downloads and popularity, was advertising it in episodes of MaturaToBzdura (in videos featuring influencers and presenting cutting edge technology). Adam and Piotr used the advertising channel closest to their hearts, which is… other YouTube influencers, who participated in “Quiz House Challenge” — one-on-one duels published on MaturaToBzdura YouTube channel. So far, the participants included e.g. Maciej Dąbrowski, Martin Stankiewicz, Fitlovers as well as Stuu, and more content involving well-known faces is yet to come. The most active ambassador of the application is Cyber Marian, who has participated in over 1300 duels already and is a fan of the “Youtubers” category. Meanwhile, the technology used when creating the application allows users to play in real time, easily add questions and ensures reliability and stability of the application at a number of duels reaching 400 thousand a day. See how we helped Quiz House achieve this results.

Example of non-standard mobile app monetisation

Apart from the standard form of monetisation (ads), Quiz House creates quizzes sponsored by brands who want to promote their products and services through education combined with entertainment. An example of such cooperation is Hasbro Gaming, which (along with MaturaToBzdura channel and using Quiz House application) created a unique advertising campaign for their party game — "Taboo".

Objective
The purpose of the campaign was to increase awareness of the Hasbro brand among gamers, along with as clear as possible presentation of "Taboo" game mechanics to potential customers.

Creative strategy
Hasbro brand entered a cooperation with MaturaToBzdura channel in order to create an episode on the Polish language, in which some of the questions were directly taken from “Taboo” cards. At the same time, a special quiz was created in a Quiz House application, which enabled players all over Poland to take part in a vocabulary knowledge competition. Questions of the “Taboo Game” quiz directly referenced the board game. “Taboo” requires guessing a term without using six words, which are the most closely connected to it in terms of meaning. The quiz also allowed the users to test their knowledge and vocabulary. It created the perfect environment to build product awareness and to make people wish they played the board game in a bigger group of friends. The purpose of the “Taboo” presentation was to eventually convince users to purchase the game online or in a store.

Target group
Hasbro campaign focused on millennials (between 20 and 35) who enjoy meeting friends and playing party games such as Taboo.

Campaign realisation
The premiere of the sponsored episode of MaturaToBzdura occurred at the same time as “Taboo Game” quiz launch in Quiz House application. Therefore, viewers who saw the episode could immediately navigate to the application, where a contest awaited them — 20 players who would reach the best result in the new, specially tagged category in two weeks from its launching, would win the board game.

At the moment of its premiere the quiz contained over 500 questions. The application offered several game modes: playing by yourself, with a friend, with a randomly assigned user (in turns or in real time). Users were to answer 6 questions in one round in order to win. At the end of each duel players received information on their victory or defeat, a number of obtained points, and their position in the ranking. They also saw a banner, which after clicking would transfer them to the Hasbro website concerning the Taboo game. There the players could learn more about the game itself and easily purchase it via smartphone. Prompting users to compete with friends in a sponsored quiz proved an exciting mobile advertising technique.

The biggest challenges
Undoubtedly, the biggest challenge was to create a creative concept of the quiz which would adequately reflect the board game. Another challenge was to design an efficient landing page which would provide the users with an immediate opportunity to learn more about the board game and purchasing it.

Results
Hasbro brand regarded the advertising campaign as very effective. Data from the first two weeks of the campaign confirm that:

• The quiz was played over 1.3 million times.
• The brand was interacted with over 2.6 million times through the banner and sponsored questions.
• 70 thousand unique players played the game and every tenth of them clicked the banner.
• Game was played on the average of 19 times per player, which means user interaction with the brand equalled over 38 minutes.

Summary

Quiz House continuously develops, soon even more categories and questions will appear. Simultaneously, its creators develop as effective as a possible offer for brands who wish to educate through entertainment and spread valuable knowledge. The list of potential duellists will also be expanded and is to contain celebrities, sportsmen, musicians, and actors. One of the most frequently asked questions by fans of MaturaToBzdura are requests to create a version for iOS, and it is one of the top priorities for the creators.

MaturaToBzdura is an example for other influencers how to utilise their reach, meet their fans' needs, and simultaneously diversify profits by offering non-standard forms of advertising to brands by using their own digital products.

Do you want to have an app that has been downloaded by over a million people? Don’t hesitate to drop us a message at [email protected]. We’re always happy to help!

Originally published in Polish by NowyMarketing.