With nearly three billion people playing video games every day, the medium offers an unprecedented opportunity to reach people where they are. Rather than simply reading about climate change, games allow players to transport themselves into new realities where they can experiment with adaptation solutions firsthand. Integrating these themes into gameplay equips players with the language, resources, and knowledge necessary to understand how change can be enacted in the real world.

Our campaign was focused on getting this messaging delivered to as many people as possible. Success for this campaign was defined by the number of people who were exposed to climate resilience topics. This included:

• Number of video views

• Peak viewers on sponsored streams

• Page views on Garden Story’s official website

• Tweet impressions

• Email newsletter opens

• Number of players

In Garden Story, players take on the role of Concord, a young grape acting as a village guardian to protect a magical world called The Grove from a creeping threat known as "the Rot". The game's true brilliance lies in how its core gameplay loop mirrors climate resilience.

Climate resilience is essentially a community's ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous environmental events or resource scarcity. Garden Story weaves these concepts directly into its tasks and mechanics:

• Infrastructure and Heat Protection: Thanks to grant funding from the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, we were able to integrate real-world climate solutions directly into the game. For example, players can build shade covers to protect their virtual community from extreme heat.

• Water Security and Resource Scarcity: To address resource distribution and scarcity, players are tasked with reviving old wells to secure a stable water supply for the community.

• Community Interdependence: The game emphasizes that climate resilience is not a solo endeavor. By completing favors, repairing environments, and protecting residents, players learn that survival and adaptation require communities to work together and share resources.

Serving as the central asset for the campaign, the partnership spotlight video was developed entirely in-house.

• Production: Executed all writing, shooting, video editing, and voiceover narration.

• Distribution: Published across the official Garden Story website and the Atlantic Council’s digital channels.

• Advertising: Deployed as a dedicated ad placement during all sponsored Garden Story broadcasts.

• Partner Collaboration: Acted as the primary liaison to align promotional messaging and digital asset distribution between both organizations.

• Social Strategy: Executed a targeted, synchronized co-marketing campaign on Twitter utilizing shared assets.

• Campaign Goals: Optimized social distribution to prioritize overall audience reach and drive total video views across partner networks.

To evaluate the campaign's performance and provide transparency to all stakeholders, I compiled a final, data-driven assessment.

• KPI Development: Defined success metrics tailored to our reach and engagement goals.

• Data Aggregation: Collected performance analytics from all social and digital channels.

• Performance Analysis: Generated a comprehensive report summarizing total impressions, conversion rates, and audience demographic data.