Stephanie Kauffman pitched an Overwatch Mercy skin with a pink-ribbon design to raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Blizzard Entertainment released it, and gamers donated $12.7 million in three weeks, far exceeding the initial $250,000 to $1 million target. The success came from the character's authentic healer role and the gaming community's willingness to support a cause they cared about.
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What is an example of a partnership that you've set up that was a huge win? My first half of my career, I was in media and entertainment. I was the senior vice president of global alliances for Universal Studios. So I knew from that experience that gaming is huge and the ability of gamers and how loyal they are to the games. And I realized through a partnership that we were doing, I think it was Mafia Wars, one of those games back in the day that gamers were really excited to purchase this avatar of the Scarface suit, and it was making the studio a ton of money. So I knew that there was something there. And when I was at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, we had some conversations with Blizzard Entertainment, and as it turned out, they had a number of employees whose loved ones, family, had been impacted by a breast cancer diagnosis. And so we worked with them on their Overwatch game, which gamers, consumers could purchase a skin for the character Mercy, which very much aligned with our organization because she was a healer. And you could do— it was a pink ribbon, you know, influenced skin. And I knew that that could work, but I had to work with board members and even some internal colleagues that wasn't sure about getting in the gaming industry. And I really believed it and really said, I will take the hit on this if it's not successful. I believe it could go to $1 million, but at minimum, $250,000. And I remember getting a phone call and they said, "Hey, Steph, I need to talk to you about what's going on with our Blizzard Overwatch game." I thought, "Oh my goodness, are we not even going to hit, you know, the minimum I told the board we were going to get?" She shared with me, she's like, "We just hit $10 million in 2 weeks." $10 million that was raised for breast cancer research from the incredible gaming community that loved the very authentic authentic space in which we were playing. It wasn't just putting a pink ribbon somewhere and there was no place for it. The character, you know, Mercy in this character of Overwatch, her previous life before she got into, you know, before the new story of her life, if you will, she was a surgeon. In this new version, she's this healer that helps heal the other characters in the game. And we netted out $12.7 million over 3 weeks.
