Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 – The Replacer takes over GIPHY | Activision/Xbox - Trailer Park Group Skip to main content

Case Study

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 – The Replacer takes over GIPHY | Activision/Xbox

To launch Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Activision was bringing back The Replacer—Call of Duty’s beloved stand-in character who handles your responsibilities so you can play. In a first-to-market GIPHY takeover, we had The Replacer give well-known GIFs the day off.

More than ever, audiences are communicating in the language of GIFs. We did something never done before: replace GIPHY’s most popular and commonly used GIFs with custom versions starring The Replacer. Our goal was to “crash” players’ conversations organically—making it feel like The Replacer and Call of Duty were everywhere, even in your group chat.

With over 200 million impressions in just two days, the GIFs permeated message threads, comment sections, and private chats worldwide.

We brought The Replacer himself, played by Peter Stormare, into the studio to star in original content inspired by 12 popular reaction GIFs. For gamers to use them, they had to feel authentic. So, each GIF demonstrated maniacal attention to detail, with painstakingly designed props, costumes, lighting, and custom rear-projected backdrops. 

To deliver on our goal of cultural saturation and fan-fueled social chatter, we gave The Replacer something he’d never had before: total control of Activision itself. The Replacer didn’t just replace an everyday person—he replaced the entire marketing team in a full-day narrative takeover of Activision’s offices, transforming the environment into his personal playground.