TreesPlease Games: Video game ads built to convert

What we did

Our Refuel creative team worked with the folks at TPG to develop fresh and exciting new ideas to take Longleaf Valley up a gear. The team took a deep dive into the world of mobile video game ads to come up with ideas ranging from standard gameplay ads and narrative focused ads, to the environmental goals of TreesPlease Games and the higher purpose of the video game.

We worked with TreesPlease Games to develop three different types of ads for Longleaf Valley based on a different audience conversion angle - gameplay, narrative, and environmental. 

We created new concepts every week, together with multiple variants based on results from previous video campaigns.

This allowed us to keep ahead of the game, constantly improving on past campaigns and keeping their video ad strategy fresh and razor sharp. 

Gameplay ads

Showing the user the gameplay was a crucial step in getting more downloads for Longleaf Valley. 

In merge games, players need to drag identical or similar items and merge them together. Once completed, these items become new and improved items. It's not just the rewards that players like about merging games. It's what they like most about them. 

One of the things that makes merge games so appealing is their simple gameplay. Players can very quickly pick up a merge game and understand the mechanics. As a result, the learning curve is short because there are no complex mechanics that require lengthy explanations.

The other is instant gratification. When players merge items in these games, they create order out of chaos. This gives some players a special kind of satisfaction. Similar to clearing your room at the end.

Finally, merging players enjoy the simple progression mechanics of the game. They always know their path to the next level, so they always have a goal to work towards. 

Longleaf Valley is essentially competing for the same audience as Match-3, which has six times the audience and is still growing. It's not an easy UA battle for them to monetise and win at scale, and Longleaf Valley's gender distribution is fairly even - both genders love the game almost equally. More specifically, 52% of the players are female and 48% are male. If we look at the age of Longleaf Valley players, 45% of players are over 45 years old and 44% are between 25 and 44 years old. Only 11% of the players are younger than 24 years old.

Narrative ads

In addition to gameplay advertising, we also worked with the client to deliver animated game ads that focused on the narrative and story behind the video game. 

This narrative focus helped add to the gameplay experience. This showed that the user has more than the game mechanics to keep them invested in playing the game. 

We created several different animations for the client to highlight the narrative, each showcasing different characters, video game features, and aims of the game.

Supporting the environment

One of the key points of differences for Longleaf Valley is that TreesPlease Games use profits from their game to plant trees across the world. 

We created several animations to highlight this, showing that users can plant trees in the game and support the planting of real trees around the world.