The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2024
The Battle Cats turns its Cat God into a real player helpline — ADC 104 Best of Gaming
PONOS and R/GA Japan opened a phone helpline where stuck Battle Cats players talk to the in-game deity — 160K calls, ADC Best of Gaming.
PONOS Corporation · R/GA Japan
What it had to solve
The Battle Cats, PONOS' strategy comedy mobile game, had players stuck on the same hard levels again and again — and quitting. The brand wanted a campaign that fit the game's absurdist humour while actually helping players progress.
How it works
Players of The Battle Cats, PONOS' notoriously difficult strategy-comedy mobile game, kept getting stuck on the same levels — and, worse, giving up. For their first Japan campaign after winning the account, R/GA Japan decided the game's own deity should step in.
In Japanese, the characters for 'cat' and 'god' are just one stroke apart, so the campaign mimicked religious posters appearing mysteriously around Tokyo to herald Cat God's arrival. Players could then reach the deity through a LINE chat helpline, and a hidden real-world phone booth — its location hinted at on social media — let superfans talk to Cat God directly for strategy advice, in-game rewards and plenty of laughs, with influencers sprinting across the city to find it.
The idea treated the game's absurdist lore as a functional service rather than a joke in an ad. Results were concrete: 1.4 million returned users, a 29% increase in new-user acquisition, a 4% drop in cost per install, and 160,000 players who actually 'called God'.
The work went on to win Best of Discipline in Gaming at the ADC 104th Annual Awards in 2025, along with a CLIO Silver in Branded Entertainment, an AICP Digital Experiences winner, and a D&AD finalist placement.
Why it lands
- The campaign made game lore into a service: players could really phone the deity for help, so the joke was the product itself.
- The one-stroke typographic insight behind 'cat' and 'god' in Japanese gave the campaign a native visual language that felt mysterious instead of promotional.
- It met players at the exact moment of frustration — stuck on a level, about to quit — where help is most valuable and most memorable.
- Spreading the helpline across posters, LINE, a phone booth and influencer stunts turned a utility into a city-wide treasure hunt.
What it did
The campaign drove 1.4 million returned users, a 29% lift in new-user acquisition and a 4% lower cost per install, with 160,000 players calling Cat God. It won Best of Discipline in Gaming at ADC 104 (2025) plus a CLIO Silver, an AICP winner and a D&AD finalist slot.
What you can take
Turn a character into a working service: when a game's deity can be phoned for help, lore stops being decoration — the campaign's joke becomes the feature players use.
Since then
The Cat God Helpline became R/GA and PONOS' flagship Japan work, winning Best of Discipline in Gaming at ADC 104 (2025) plus hardware at CLIO, AICP and D&AD. R/GA continued producing The Battle Cats campaigns for PONOS — including The Outcats and Year of the Cat — keeping the game's deity and its absurdist world at the centre of the brand's marketing.
Sources
- The Battle Cats Offers Gamers a Hotline to Cat God in New Campaign from PONOS and R/GA
- R/GA Japan + PONOS deliver inspiring message to The Battle Cats' gamers via holy hotline
- R/GA Japan and Fengkun Bai Win Best of Discipline Honors at ADC 104th Annual Awards
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