Hay Day is looking for players among ghosts this Halloween. Yvette Fielding, host of Most Haunted, was enlisted for the task, visiting the historic Cogges Manor Farm in Oxfordshire and attempting to contact its alleged supernatural resident. Her invitation was fairly simple: to play Hay Day.
Behind the Haunted Farms campaign is agency Forsman & Bodenfors, which developed the introduction of seasonal content for Supercell’s game into a five-minute video modelled on paranormal documentaries. Fielding conducts the investigation and séance in the manner her television audience already knows, while the humour comes from trying to interest a ghost in growing digital crops.
The farm visit also provided material for the development of the Red Revenant, a new character appearing in the game for Halloween. Its design was inspired by local ghost stories, allowing the content filmed at a real location to continue within the app.
Creatives Julia Holtback Yeter and Karl Risenfors explained that the idea came from the overlap between Hay Day’s audience and the growing interest in paranormal entertainment. They wanted to create content that players could follow and participate in, giving the new character’s introduction a broader story.
This choice allowed the campaign to play with the horror genre while retaining the game’s relaxed character. Maya Hofree, general manager of Hay Day, noted that the game offers people a break from everyday chaos, adding that ghosts might also appreciate a little peace after spending a few hundred years haunting an English farm.
The campaign is running ahead of Halloween across digital channels, social media and in-game activities. The video was directed by Torbjörn Martin, with production by B-Reel Films.
