How zombies drove 169,000 blood donation signups

Yes, really. A zombie survival game drove a wildly successful blood donation campaign for the American Red Cross.

While at Xbox, I partnered with the team at Undead Labs, the studio behind State of Decay, to find opportunities for real-world impact through the game. The game's narrative already revolved around a fictional blood plague, and the game’s general theme of “together we survive,” gave us a natural way to talk about real-world blood shortages. Not in a heavy-handed way, but one that felt relevant to the players.

We just needed the right partner to scale it. So we reached out to the American Red Cross.

One of my favorite moments in the initial conversation was when I asked the Red Cross, "what's your stance on zombies?" Their response was so candid, just a "… well, we hadn't really thought about that before." It's the beauty of working in the video game industry, we can make literally anything happen.

Before we launched, the studio’s Director of Comms and I went to donate blood ourselves. It was early in the pandemic, and we wanted to be sure we weren’t asking players to do something we wouldn’t do ourselves. That mattered. The campaign was about solidarity. In-game and out.

We rolled out the campaign across State of Decay 2, Xbox, developer livestreams, and Red Cross channels. In the game, players could call in a bloodmobile. In real life, they showed up in force.

That first year, 169,000 people signed up to donate. 64% percent were brand new donors to the Red Cross. Last year, the partnership's fourth year in a row, tens of thousands more joined including a high share from the Red Cross’s key target demographics.

It worked because it was intentional. It wasn’t about checking a box. It was about building a campaign rooted in a story that moved people to take real action. The kind that can literally save lives. For Undead Labs, it also opened the door to a new audience. Partnering with the Red Cross put their game in front of people who may never have heard of it, and did it in a way that built trust and positive association from the start.

That’s what I keep coming back to. Smart, grounded campaigns can move culture and move people. Especially when they meet audiences where they already are.

This is the kind of work I help brands and nonprofits build. If you're ready to connect impact with culture, let’s talk.

All company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Descriptions are based on publicly available information and my role in these projects. Image credit to Undead Labs.