PLAYTIKA WAS A PROFITABLE TITAN OF THE MOBILE GAME WORLD…
… AND EVERYONE WAS SLEEPING ON THEM.
CHALLENGE/OBJECTIVE
When Israel-based Playtika started searching for collaborators to share their story ahead of an IPO, there was one objective that presided over all others: find a partner that can wake the world up. They were a profitable titan of the mobile game world, at the forefront of Israel’s impressive new mobile games industry, and no one was talking about them.
Late 2020 was a trying time to try and tell this story. The COVID-19 pandemic was continuing to shut the world down and restrict travel, the economy was a head scratcher, and the State of Israel was in political crisis. It was critical that Playtika find a partner that could handle producing a high-quality story that resonated with investors around the world even in the face of these challenges.
After vetting multiple partners, Playtika’s investor team approached Glass + Marker to hear how we would approach their challenges.
They decided to place their trust in us and we got to work.
First, we needed to deeply understand what made Playtika stand out from the noise and build the script to bring that forward.
In 2010, two opportunities emerged that changed gaming forever and inspired the founding of Playtika: the launch of game platforms by enormous and growing social networks like Facebook, and the emergence of the freemium business model.
Playtika launched their first game – Slotomania – and almost immediately became a category leader. With that success, came competition around the world. Competition with much more experience developing content and growing games. As an Israeli company, in a country with no video game industry or talent, they had to move faster, be more creative and think more entrepreneurially than anyone else to compete.
But they did have access to some of the world’s elite data analysts, digital marketers and technologists, with no learned habits to stop them from doing things their own way. So instead of building a videogame company trying to learn how to analyze and build mobile data technology, they built a data-driven tech company that specializes in marketing and monetizing games.
Numbers can only tell you so much, but here are a few to capture how well Playtika was doing: 11,500,00 daily users. 9 games in the Top 100 grossing games in the US mobile market – more than anyone else. #1 in slot-themed, bingo-themed, hidden object, solitaire and poker-themed games. A compound annual growth rate of 28% from 2015 to 2020. And an EBITDA of nearly $900 million dollars in the late summer of 2020.
STRATEGIC APPROACH
We wanted to make sure that the core technology stack that resulted in such a profitable business trajectory was clearly understood. We also wanted to ensure that the key insight behind Playtika’s model – that they looked at titles as platforms – was also understood. Platforms, built upon a much larger platform.
To make sure that the audience fully comprehended how effective this layered approach was, the script and the visuals needed to be designed around these insights – each section related to and building upon the last. Glass + Marker took a heavy hand in writing the script to bring this narrative forward and set us up for success in post.
Our next challenge was how to capture effective, strong performances from a largely-Israel based, ESL executive team. As a double-win to address both the energy needed in the piece and the language barrier, we created rules to make the script punchy and easy to deliver.
As a part of this, we also made the recommendation to have Israel-based execs run through the specific gameplay and core services – the things they were intimately familiar with and ran on a daily basis – while giving the exec team that spoke English fluently the heavy storytelling. This worked well because enthusiasm and familiarity came through in the performance and we were able to get more voices into the film.
EXECUTION
While our creative team was working with Playtika on the script, the Glass + Marker Accounts and Production teams got to work on solving for the COVID-19 and Israel travel restrictions, the time difference, and the on-set language barrier.
Rather than ask folks in Israel to work on California time, we adjusted the G+M calendar and work days to overlap for 4-5 hours daily with Tel Aviv, usually between 10pm and 5am PST.
We set our project milestones to maximize our Fridays to get ahead of the Israeli start to the work week on Sunday. This meant that they could always kick their week off with 24 hours of review time, and we could always end our week with 24 hours of planning/adjustments.
With a working schedule in place, we focused on solving for locations and crew. It was clear we would need to be able to direct remotely, but we needed a strong team on the ground that could bring our vision to life and we needed controls to ensure the G+M vision was executed.
After an extensive DP search we partnered with a Tel Aviv-based artist who had recently filmed a variety of social content for Playtika right on the heels of a beautiful corporate documentary for SAP. The combination of their understanding of Playtika’s consumer energy and color palette and the loveliness of their SAP piece was the right combination for the project, and the fact they were Israeli helped with the language barrier and put the subjects at ease.
With a DP on the team and local production resources well-versed in our creative approach, we were able to find shooting locations and camera moves that evoked what we saw in gameplay and social adverts from Playtika, which also informed the graphic language G+M designers built in post.
We knew we needed to pioneer a new way to engage with the Playtika team and our local crew that was resilient and had fail safes built in so we could protect our client’s budget.
All of the Israeli segments were filmed over the course of a week with the G+M team joining from lockdown via Zoom. We used a combination of an eye-direct and a teleprompter to ensure that the subjects could talk directly with the director and producer in California and still maintain a great performance and a direct-to-camera eyeline.
Each of the subjects was also given an earbud that we obscured from the camera angles so that they could hear the director in their ear without having to look away from the camera. The on-site producer, AD and DP also had this audio feed so that everyone important could hear what the director was saying remotely without creating issues.
We filmed the USA-based executive team in LA once we had captured and edited all of the Israeli content together in a rough cut. This allowed us to judge performance and delivery and then update the US exec script to cover for or address issues without needing to reshoot anyone in Israel. The DP for the LA shoot, the director, and the DP from the Tel Aviv shoot spent a day virtually scouting locations in LA together and ensuring the same lighting structure and methodology was used.
On the visual front, it was deeply important that we strike the right visual tone for Playtika. Their consumer brand was vibrant and playful, but speaking to an audience of investors is unique. We needed to marry their mantra of “play” and their business acumen together with an emphasis on clarity.
We kicked the film off with a dynamic and fun opening sequence that fully encapsulated the “infinite ways to play” brand statement Playtika was built around, introducing key characters and themes we knew we would revisit regularly and setting the tone right off the bat. This let the audience get familiar with what made Playtika effective and dynamic, and introduced the design language we built upon later.
We knew that just like every line of the script needed to be sharp and direct, the motion language of the production and graphics needed to be constantly in-motion and the right balance of color and clarity to echo how effectively designed and vibrant their game offerings were. After paring down the Playtika brand ID by removing the most intense elements, we leaned into the playfulness approach. We used both kinetic typography and design to bring key statements to life on screen next to subjects so the audience never was lost. And we opted to do this with both Israeli and english-native speakers so that the entire piece felt cohesive and consistent.
To clearly show the technology stack that Playtika had built, we invented an entirely new core motion graphic sequence that we could continuously return to over and over when different elements of the business were discussed. This allowed unfamiliar viewers to see how each element of Playtika’s business was related and connected to the others without having to remember everything. Each time we came back to the core, it shifted from the last thing we discussed to the new one, creating a visual association that made tracking easy and interesting.
To add another little layer of energy, but without drowning the clarity and information share that was top priority, we used sound design to underline and emphasize key points or transitions.
RESULTS/OUTCOME
The final result was terrific – a project that perfectly encapsulated Playtika’s brand, showcased the benefits of their Israeli roots and unique data-driven approach, and clearly highlighted the methodology and levers behind their financial prosperity.
Playtika’s Israel and US teams were thrilled with the outcome, and the world clearly got the message. After their roadshow concluded in January 2021, their stock debuted well over their initial target at $27 a share, allowing Playtika to enter a new phase of growth with a deep pool of resources.
The core graphics we built for them continue to be used in investor relations and in marketing efforts. In 2022 Playtika returned to Glass + Marker to build the content for their annual investor day, and a long and engaging partnership continues to thrive.
