A drop's story doesn't start with a broadcast. It starts small — with the team, the core collectors, and the creators who already have an audience — and ripples outward through what they share, reaching each of the five archetypes in the words that matter to them. From there, the plan runs message by message, across the whole arc, and every message is shaped by what that person just did.
Same drop, same day. Who hears it first changes everything that happens after.
Everyone finds out at once.
One email goes to the whole list the moment the set is public. There's no conversation already happening when it lands, and no one feels like they heard it first.
The room is already talking.
Collectors who completed last year's set, and the creators who cover the product, get an early, embargoed look. By the time the public announcement goes out, their reactions are already the first replies underneath it.
From who hears it first, to the system that decides what everyone hears next.
The story doesn't start with the public announcement. It moves outward in rings, each one hearing it a little before the next, so the public hears it on top of a conversation that's already moving.
Build the moment worth sharing into the product itself, not around it afterward. A completed-set recap, a Chance Hit pull reveal, a leaderboard rank — each one should look like the collector's own achievement, not a brand message wearing their name.
The moments that travel share a shape: they make the collector look like they got there first, they're easy to screenshot, and they carry a one-line story. Berger, Contagious (the STEPPS framework).
Before the reveal, show a mystery, not the prize: a silhouette and a date build more anticipation than a full picture of what's inside.
The three dominoes from the arc, the big pulls, and the first collectors to complete a set are already news. Publish each one the moment it happens, and it travels further than anything written to promote the drop.
What collectors tell each other is trusted far more than anything we could buy: 92% of people trust a recommendation from someone they know over every paid channel. Nielsen, Global Trust in Advertising, 2012.
Lead with the Collector-Speculator: the chase is the most proven draw for packs, and it's the easiest story to pass on — a pull, and the odds behind it. Every segment still needs its own hook.
| Archetype | The hook that gets repeated | First channel |
|---|---|---|
| Collector-Speculator | The chase, and the odds behind it | In-app, then social media |
| Grail Collector | How rare the piece is, and proof there are fewer left | Personal email |
| Completionist | Exactly what's missing, and how close they are | Push or in-app, triggered by progress |
| Social Fan | Their player or character is in it | Social media, then push |
| Newcomer | The easiest, cheapest way to open a first pack | Social media, then the home screen |
Pinging the same person five times across one drop is fine, if each message is new information about their own progress. Tolerance for frequency is real, but it's a reaction to irrelevance, not to volume on its own.
56% of people unsubscribe after four or more messages from one company in 30 days, and push users getting one a day retain at 88% after three months, against 54% at five a day. Airship push-frequency research.
A Completionist might hear from us five times in one week — qualifying, allocation open, draw result, last chance, set complete — and open every one, because each tells them something new about their own collection. Triggered messages already prove the difference: they get roughly double the open and click rates of a batch send, and far more revenue per send, because they land on real intent instead of a schedule. BounceX, triggered vs. batch email.
Every message should branch on what the person did since the last one, not repeat because a calendar said to. Below is one collector's path through the whole arc, to show how the plan branches.
Hypothetical: a Completionist, not a real collector, and not a plan.
Gets the general save-the-date and a highlight of the set she already completed. No branch yet — everyone starts here.
Owns 8 of the 10 pieces needed to lock a Rare set. Message: "You're 2 Rares from Box priority." Locks it in time → moves to the qualified track and gets the priority-allocation message next. Not yet → one more nudge before the allocation sells out, then follows the general track into the main draw.
Qualified track: "The allocation sold out. Your draw entry is in," then nothing further until the result. General track: each domino's headline, with the next way in and its close time, plus one last-chance push before any close — never a repeat of a headline she's already seen.
Wins a slot either way. Message: "Your pack is ready. We open at [time]." Opens live → goes straight to the result message. Doesn't show up at the live moment → one reminder, then the result is waiting whenever she returns.
Set complete → "You're one of the first [N] to complete [set name]," with a shareable recap card that becomes next drop's honour-the-past content. Still short → "You're 1 away from completing [set]," and a nudge when the missing piece is cheapest on the market.
Four ways to run a drop's messages, each more work than the last — and worth it.
A learning system built this way, tested across 200 million notifications, lifted daily actives by 0.5% and new-user retention by 2% over a strong fixed-schedule baseline — and it worked partly by not letting any one message win forever, demoting a reminder before it goes stale. Yancey & Settles, KDD 2020 (Duolingo).
Run every drop as high on this ladder as the volume supports: triggers everywhere a person's own action can drive the message, and adaptive decisioning wherever enough people pass through the same moment to let a system learn.
Examples of the move, not plans.
The room is already talking before the announcement.
The art moves first, through the people who already love it.
Every row is one message. The last column is what happens next, depending on what they do — not a fixed follow-up.
| Beat | Who | Trigger | Channel | What it says | What happens next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honour the past | Collectors who completed the past set | Announcement finalised, before public reveal | "Your [set name] collection helped build what's next. Here's an early look before anyone else sees it." | Shares it → treated as an amplifier for the next drop too. Opens but doesn't share → included in the next embargoed look either way. Doesn't open → one push, closer to the public reveal. | |
| Honour the past | Creators | Same window, a few days before public reveal | Email, with assets | "Early access: post [set name] on your own channels starting [date]." | Posts → thanked and noted for next drop's early list. Doesn't post → no penalty, included again next time. |
| Honour the past | Everyone | Public announcement goes live | Social media, email | "Save the date: [set name] drops [date]." | Clicks the countdown → opted into the reminder track. No action → stays in the general pool, still gets the next beat's message. |
| Open the doors | Collectors who already qualify | Priority allocation opens | Push, email | "Your [set] gets you first shot. The priority allocation is open now." | Buys → moves to the "owns this drop" track for What's next. Doesn't buy within [N] hours → one reminder before it sells out, never a second repeat. |
| Open the doors | Collectors close to qualifying | Owns [N-1] of the pieces needed to lock | In-app, push | "You're 2 Rares from Box priority." | Completes the lock → moves to the qualified-collector message above. Doesn't act → one follow-up as the allocation nears sell-out, then drops to the general track. |
| Open the doors | Collector-Speculators | Chance Hit packs or the drop's own chases go live | In-app, social media | "The chase is live: [N] [chase item] in the drop, at [odds]." | Pulls a chase → an immediate shareable reveal. Doesn't pull → stays on the open-doors track, sees the next domino. |
| Open the doors | Social Fans of featured players or characters | The doors open | Social media, push | "[Player / character] is in [set name]. Here's the easiest way in." | Opens the app → sees the entry-price product. Doesn't act → one re-send if someone in their own network posts about it. |
| Show the build-up | Priority entrants | Allocation sells out (domino 1) | Push | "The allocation sold out. Your draw entry is in." | Nothing to do yet. Moves to a watch state until the draw result. |
| Show the build-up | Priority draw entrants | Priority draw results are in | Push, email | Won: "You're in. Your [product] is confirmed." Missed: "Not this time. Your entry rolls into the main draw automatically." | Won → moves to the drop-day track. Missed → no action needed; gets the main-draw result next, then their best next move. |
| Show the build-up | Everyone who hasn't entered | Each domino as it falls | Social media, email | "[N] entries for [N] spots. The priority draw is oversubscribed." | Clicks through → sees the next way in and its close time. No click → sees the next domino's headline, not a repeat of this one. |
| Show the build-up | Anyone with a window closing soon | [N] hours before close | Push (a small holdout gets none) | "Your window closes in [N] hours." | Enters → moves to the drop-day track. Still doesn't enter → the window closes, and they're offered the next access point instead. |
| Drop day | Winners | Pack or pin is ready | Push, in-app | "Your pack is ready. We open at [time]." | Opens live → the result message. Doesn't show up live → one reminder, then the result waits until they return. |
| Drop day | Everyone | The live moment | In-app, social media | "It's live." | Branches by what they pull: a chase, a set-completing piece, or neither — three different What's next messages. |
| What's next | A collector who pulled a chase or a big hit | The reveal itself | In-app (shareable card), social media | "[N] of these exist. Share your pull." | Shares → amplifies to their own network, feeding the next drop's seeding ring. Doesn't share → still appears on the live best-pulls feed. |
| What's next | A collector one piece short of a set | New piece doesn't complete it | In-app, push | "You're 1 away from completing [set]." | Buys or trades the last piece → the set-completion message below. Doesn't act → one follow-up showing where to find the missing piece, then goes quiet. |
| What's next | The first collectors to complete the set | Set completion | In-app (shareable recap), email | "You're one of the first [N] to complete [set name]." | Shares the recap → becomes word of mouth for the next drop's honour-the-past beat. |
| What's next | Collectors who missed the drop | Drop has closed | "Here's your best next move: [next access point]." | Acts → enters the next drop's open-the-doors track. No action → returns to the general pool for the next announcement. |
Hold out a small, random slice of eligible collectors from a message or a sequence. Everyone else gets it. The gap between the two groups is the real lift — without a holdout, you're measuring people who were already going to act, not the message's effect on them.
A hypothetical, inside our own products. Imagine every message in the arc goes out as one blast to the whole list, on the same schedule, regardless of what each person has done. The Grail Collector gets the same "the drop is live" push as the Newcomer. The Completionist never hears that they're two pieces from their set. A collector who already bought the allocation gets the same "last chance" push as someone who hasn't looked yet. Nothing in any message is new information, so fewer people open each one, and by the third message in the arc a chunk of the list has muted push entirely — the channel is burned before drop day arrives.
The fix: every message in the arc is triggered by what that person did last, not by what day it is.