Case Study: Up-Leveling Mobile Game Ads for Millennial Women

What’s Grandma Hiding? A big win, apparently! 

We’re honored that our client, Wieden+Kennedy (and their client, Metacore Games), were recently awarded two Gold David Ogilvy Awards by the Advertising Research Foundation for their viral – and undeniably spooky – Merge Mansion ad campaign. Read on to learn how we helped Merge Mansion use the power of insights to better understand Millennial women gamers and transcend their category into the world of entertainment. 

Standing out in a noisy and homogenous category. 

Mobile gaming is notoriously competitive. From classic arcade favorites to multi-player games that keep us connected, it seems like every week there’s a new concept to download and explore (and truly, there is). Metacore Games knew it faced tough competition when it created Merge Mansion, a “merge-style” mobile game that, not unlike other games in its sphere, features an intriguing introductory story that builds alongside the game as players unlock new levels. After launching Merge Mansion to great success, Metacore was eager to keep the momentum going with an awareness campaign that would attract Millennial women and make their offering stand out. In order to do that well, they knew they needed to understand their audience in a deeper and more nuanced way than other mobile game developers.  

Going deeper with a powerful (and often underestimated) consumer group: Millennial women.

Traditional PC gamers are studied and dissected ad nauseum these days. This isn’t surprising, as they’re the ones voted most likely to lead us into the metaverse and a whole new world of entertainment. Mobile gamers, on the other hand, are studied less frequently despite being responsible for 45% of global video game revenue in 2022. Far from the nuanced marketing outreach of PC game campaigns, mobile gamers tend to get lumped together and are often targeted in rote and homogenous ways. Unsurprisingly, the resulting advertisements for mobile games feel, well, rote and homogenous.  

Metacore wanted to do things differently. They were hopeful that they could engage their audience – mostly Millennial women, who make up the majority of mobile game users – despite the pervasive industry belief that mobile game players aren’t a very engaged group.  

This is exactly the type of challenge we specialize in at Hypothesis. We got to work helping Metacore and their agency, Wieden + Kennedy, understand what really motivates mobile gamers to both download a new game and keep coming back for more. Like most other under-studied groups, we suspected that there was more nuance to be found behind mobile gamers’ behaviors, and that Merge Mansion had major potential to connect with Millennial women on a deeper level.   

A whole new understanding of what mobile games really mean to Millennial women. 

Using online journals and triads, we designed a custom, human-centered approach that broke the norms of casual games research and delivered richer, more actionable insights. The goal was to go beyond an exploration of how consumers play to better understand the role of gaming in women’s broader entertainment diets. How do they prioritize entertainment? What messages resonate most?  

Contrary to the industry-wide belief that the casual gaming audience is detached and indifferent, we learned that female players don’t engage with mobile games to simply “fill” time. They turn to gaming for accomplishment and challenge, and Merge Mansion has what it takes to deliver: compelling puzzles driven by an intricate and intriguing storyline.  

An empathetic approach paid off in spades with a viral ad campaign.  

Our findings enabled Merge Mansion to break out of what is expected of mobile gaming and into the deeper world of entertainment. Wieden + Kennedy worked with Metacore to create an ad campaign that honored female gamers’ true motivations and engaged with their audience in a meaningful way. The highly cinematic campaign, “What is Grandma Hiding,” features award-winning horror film actress Kathy Bates and alludes to the mystery players will experience as they progress through different levels in Merge Mansion. The campaign built a rich world of suspense and mystery, appealing to the broader entertainment needs and expectations of female mobile gamers.  

After the campaign launched, Metacore saw a 151% increase in downloads, a 141% spike in search volume, and a 460% spike in social media mentions (as compared to the previous week before the campaign debuted). They also enjoyed increased recognition scores, a significant boost in app rankings on both Google Play and Apple App Store, tons of new followers, and 82M PR impressions from all the buzz.  

Although many consider puzzle games such as Merge Mansion to be “low engagement,” it’s clear that female players feel otherwise. By going deeper and understanding nuances and motivations, Metacore has been able to stand out in a way that competitors have not. The main takeaway? Challenge industry groupthink, no matter how pervasive the assumption. Customers always have a more nuanced story to tell if you’re willing to look. (That is, unless you’re looking into Grandma Ursula from Merge Mansion. That old lady is good at hiding her secrets!)