Our newest case examine star is Household Island! Well-known for its extremely dramatic video adverts and using storytelling tropes. Is that the key to their success? Come check out their advertising technique with us and see how this Stone Age farming recreation grew to become a staple of cell gaming.
About Household Ssland
Household Island is an off-the-cuff farming recreation that was launched in October 2019 by Melsoft Video games. The sport has been downloaded over 50 million instances (and greater than 2 million instances previously 30 days).
Set within the Stone Age, the sport follows a household of 4 (the dad Bruce, the mother Eve and the youngsters Tim and Lizzy) that escapes a volcano eruption and begins a brand new life on an uninhabited island.
The objective of the sport is to assist the household survive and thrive by crafting, farming, foraging, and many others. Gamers must develop crops and mine sources but in addition construct and improve instruments and buildings.
There may be additionally a discovery aspect in addition to the opportunity of adorning and customizing the farm. On prime of the gameplay, there’s a narrative layer following the household’s story with surprising twists to maintain gamers engaged. Among the storylines are interactive, that means that gamers can affect the general story.
Their app shops presence
Household Island has tailored its retailer property to the completely different audiences of each the App Retailer and the Play Retailer. Though the creatives are related in branding, coloration schemes, and characters, there are nonetheless some adjustments between each shops.
One of many benefits of the sport is that due to their UA campaigns, the characters are very recognizable. Additionally they all the time put on the identical outfits and haircuts, constructing a way of familiarity with gamers. Blue is the predominant coloration, it’s a peaceful coloration that matches in effectively with the idyllic island setting (despite the fact that the island is barely seen on the App Retailer icon). Nonetheless, probably the most notable distinction is that one icon solely exhibits the dad and mom whereas the opposite exhibits all the household.
The Play Retailer focuses solely on Bruce and Eve, they haven’t reached the island simply but so that they’re nonetheless surrounded by glowing water. The App Retailer icon provides some particulars, with each the children being current and extra motion for the characters (the mother is holding a plate and each member of the family is doing one thing with their arms).
The Play Retailer promo video acts as a backstory to the sport. It begins with an attention-grabbing volcanic eruption that explains why the household finally ends up on the sport’s island. They begin introducing gaming components separately, displaying actions taken within the recreation, then vitality bars, and many others.
The storytelling-heavy starting is certain to seize customers’ consideration in addition to being a pleasant recall of the sport’s UA property.
Counting on dramatic tropes in UA
Drama brings feelings and will get folks invested. For UA, Household Island depends totally on video adverts and storytelling. A lot of the adverts present members of the family in extremely dramatic conditions.
One of many tropes they use is the dishonest trope. Over a number of video adverts, each the daddy and the mom are proven dishonest on one another, prompting the opposite father or mother to go away and find yourself on the abandoned island of the sport.
Dishonest is a extremely dramatic occasion, each in actuality and fiction. It pushes witnesses to take sides and, in consequence, get emotionally concerned. It’s additionally a certain solution to drive sturdy opinions. Nobody is actually detached to conditions like this and it reminds customers of actual life as a result of these are conditions which can be frequent and have been encountered earlier than in a nonfiction world.
Some variations of the advert additionally heighten the stakes with each the spouse and the daughter discovering out on the identical time whereas they had been about to announce a brand new being pregnant. Enjoyable truth: the dad just isn’t proven within the gameplay on the finish of the advert, as if he was not a part of the sport after that treason.
These tropes additionally enable the characters to specific sturdy feelings (shock, anger, disappointment), and the extra seen the emotion, the extra potential gamers can empathize with it and construct a reference to the sport.
Household Island has humanoid characters, which signifies that as a result of they’re human, they’re anticipated to behave as such, and displaying their humanity by emotional settings can create a bridge between the sport and its gamers.
An emotional attachment is step one towards a trusting relationship. For gamers to put money into a recreation, each money and time, they should join with it and belief the model.
Their video adverts and common UA campaigns additionally rely closely on storytelling. As a result of the sport has such identifiable characters, they can be utilized in several methods to showcase tales and catch viewers’ consideration. With a robust starting with excessive stakes, folks really feel compelled to look at the advert to know what occurs to the characters.
On this advert, the daddy is stranded at sea, surrounded by menacing sharks in the course of a storm. He’s clearly alone, trying fondly at an image of his household. There are a number of plot twists: we see a shark leaping on the digital camera, the daddy is nowhere to be discovered after that, and on the very finish of the video we see somebody watching the household from afar.
Not realizing what occurs to the dad retains customers concerned within the video, it could even increase interplay as a result of folks wish to surprise and speculate about what occurs. Storytelling is an effective way to spice up conversions and Household Island is admittedly counting on that, with nice outcomes.
One other trope they use is household. In any case, it’s even in the secret. Household Island’s content material is all in regards to the characters and their household. The daughter is the star of many UA video adverts. Constructing a connection between the gamers and the characters is an effective way to maintain them engaged and cut back churn. In any case, the extra they benefit from the characters and get hooked up to them, the extra they are going to wish to play the sport.
Gamers being emotionally invested within the recreation and its characters is a good factor, as a result of not solely it signifies that they belief the model however they are going to play for longer.
Hello there, I am Marine (she/her), I am a Content material Supervisor at Apptamin. Apptamin is a artistic company specialised in app movies (video adverts, app retailer movies, and many others.).
