How to work with advertising creatives for games — opinion of Banzai Games, AdSide Media and RoasUp

The discussion was attended by Roman Nosov, creative producer of Banzai Games, Evgeny Marchenkov, CEO of AdSide Media, and Gleb Mashchenko, founder of RoasUp.

Key points from the discussion:

• creatives can be developed either on their own or entrusted to third-party companies. External teams can generate more ideas, and they may have more options. But the studio itself understands the audience better;
• creatives must be tested, even if they initially seem unsuitable. Marchenkov said that there was a case in AdSide Media when most specialists did not like the creative, but after conducting an A/B test it turned out that it was the most effective. And Nosov remembered that during his time at Pixonic, the company could not come up with a good advertisement for War Robots on the Russian market. At some point, one of the employees jokingly suggested “adding a tank in front of the robot” — his idea was successful;
• sometimes studios can accuse advertisers that their creativity spoils the indicators. But according to Mashchenko from RoasUp, metrics are secondary. It is much more important to look at the final result of an advertising campaign;
• clients may also offer not always successful ideas for creatives. For example, ordering “wild” ads in the Asian style — such creatives usually turn out to be the most disastrous. It is also important to remember that an advertising specialist should first of all strive to make an effective creative, and not express himself through a high-budget video with mislids;
• as for working with platforms, each of them requires a special approach. TikTok is popular now, but in order to use it effectively, you need to follow the rules adopted there. Including tracking trends. “The public in TikTok feels fake well if your creatives just mimic trends. You need to catch the trend while it is still working hard. With proper handling, this is the coolest of modern platforms,” Nosov believes;
• you should prepare creatives at the stage of softlonch, then by the launch of the game there will already be a set of well-working commercials;
• as Nosov noted, when creating creatives, the main thing is to understand what is the essence of core gameplay and the main idea of the game. The promotion of War Robots was built around the idea of robot battles. This idea formed the basis of all promotional initiatives;
• Representatives of Banzai Games, AdSide Media and RoasUp agree that the formula “sex sells” works. However, different genres have their own nuances;
• at the end, the participants of the discussion urged not to attach too much importance to the experience of creatives. “There are no creative sommeliers. You can do creatives for five years, but in terms of expertise, you often won’t be able to predict or guess which one will be effective,” concluded Mashchenko. “It is necessary to keep an eye on competitors and not to pretend to be experts,” Marchenkov added.