Started as a Media Lab test for Google Play Korea, this dynamic campaign has spread worldwide based on performance. My hypothesis: if users saw actual gameplay from a genre that fit their profile, it would greatly increase response. It did, confirmed by performance data analytics. The ads are for mobile-only since these are Android games. Fun note: J.K. Rowling approved final HP units.

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Situation:

In late 2018 Google Play Korea heard it could get free media dollars if it used our office to produce better performing ads using our best practices. The ads would promote downloads of Android games and reengagement for lapsed players. 

 

Task:

I led a team of a designer, senior writer, developer, and strategist to ideate and present the solutions. 

 

Action:

After a week of roughs and loose ideas, nothing was working for me. We were working with assets supplied by the gaming houses, animating static images of game characters.  After watching Twitch I formed a hypothesis on how to draw users: if users served actual gameplay only from a genre that fit their profile, it would greatly increase response. Utilizing our proprietary dynamic templates, we showed full ad gameplay in videos in the background. Google Korea in the preso was skeptical but wanted us to test it. [Google was also skeptical that we could get approvals of game footage.] So we built out acquisition and re-engagement versions for Lineage III and programmatically trafficked them to likely responders.

 

Result:

Google Play Korea was stunned with the results 2x over the previous campaign and .12% response in actual downloads. Since then this dynamic campaign has spread worldwide for Google for over 20 games and performance remains consistent.