The Opportunity: Across gaming genres, ads have lots of visual repetition and feature standard gameplay executions. The ads rarely showcase creative direction or ideas, story arcs, editing, etc., and this creative behavior negatively affects their ad results.
The Solution: This Meta Creative Shop experiment was based on the hypothesis that “Creative that is differentiated in both visual and communication approaches will have higher Ad scores than standard gameplay assets.” The framework has 3 buckets: BAU (Business as Usual, or gameplay), SHOW (use simple design elements to visually distinguish yourself from standard gameplay executions), and TELL (position yourself to your audiences). – We developed an original medieval strategy game using Unreal Engine to test our hypothesis. Usurper revolves around building fortresses and alliances, amassing resources, fortifying your kingdom and commanding your army to regain your former power from the evil usurper. Check out the captions below for more context on each ad.
Business As Usual:
Standard game play execution
"SHOW: Use Design Elements to Visually Distinguish Yourself from Standard Gameplay Executions"
Split-screen treatment style; Logo animation; Visual text treatment
"TELL: Position Yourself to Your Audiences"
Tell a story about your universe; Story arc; Sound design; Character POV
Branding
Endorsements
"From illustrating storyboards, navigating feedback, creating an eclectic array of graphics and helping me project manage everything together–– you went above and beyond and I always appreciate it! It's always great partnering with you."
– VFX & Real-Time Artist, Meta (Facebook)
"Thank you for being an amazing partner and bringing your incredible design expertise. During the workshops our clients were constantly impressed and inspired by the ads!"
– Creative Strategist, Meta (Facebook)
"Thank you for the most incredible ads and branding! Working with you was fun and added so much value to the experiment materials. Having such solid and well crafted examples will not only make us look great, but I am sure they will positively impact how clients build their ads - you've set the bar. Thank you for the partnership, for adapting to our workshops and for the amazing work.”
– Creative Industry Lead, Meta (Facebook)
Client: Meta (Facebook)
Role: Design Lead
Team: Deejay Forte, Rodrigo Zannin, Carol Orsini, Lewis Tutssel, Leon Lin
Team: Deejay Forte, Rodrigo Zannin, Carol Orsini, Lewis Tutssel, Leon Lin