Why people click: The power of creative hooks

Giacomo Maragliulo is creative lead at Supersonic from Unity.

Designing a mobile game and designing an ad for a mobile game are two distinct processes that require different approaches, skill sets, and goals.

While both require creativity and an understanding of the target audience, game design focuses on creating an engaging product, whereas ad design emphasises attracting and converting potential users

At the base of every successful creative lies a good hook. The challenge lies in capturing attention quickly, especially when users are inundated with countless ads, making it tough to stand out.

To succeed in mobile game creatives, you need to truly understand your audience, diving deep into their motivations, struggles, and desires.

Always ask: What emotions are we evoking, and what’s driving the player to take the next step and click? From there, capture attention with striking visuals.

Choose bold, high-quality images, dynamic colours, and memorable characters. Weave a story that resonates, and pair it with music or sound effects that amplify the experience. 

Ultimately, tap into emotions to inspire users to engage and act.

Let’s dissect different types of creative hooks and the anatomy of a creative hook, all with real-life examples.

Types of creative hooks

Creative hooks can typically be divided into a number of categories: transitions, emotionally-driven hooks, and those that draw in players based on the appeal of the game itself. 

Transition hooks:

• Animation/gameplay grabs attention with smooth transitions from animation to gameplay, ensuring a cohesive story. 
• Action shifts show quick changes and sudden visual twists, capturing attention and engagement using the element of surprise. 
• Real-life footage starts with footage that connects to the creative/gameplay, making the ad feel more relatable and engaging.

Emotionally-driven hooks: 

• ASMR openings use soothing visuals that draw viewers into the ad, evoking tranquillity and satisfaction. 
• Conflict hooks present disputes with clear context and consequences, captivating and engaging players with drama.
• Compassion hooks show heartbreaking stories, creating an immediate emotional connection.

Game appeal hooks:

• Tutorial focus shows a quick introduction of the main mechanic, so users understand the challenge and action they need to take.
• Decision-making hooks present choices at the beginning. This sparks curiosity to see the consequences of these decisions, keeping players invested.
• Progression hooks showcase the journey – how players build, expand, and progress. This appeals to those interested in development and achievement.

The anatomy of a creative hook

Now that we know what types of creative hooks there are, here’s how they may work in reality. This is best explained through examples.

I’ll share two ads for each game and show how they each, in different ways, successfully evoke an emotion, capture attention with strong visuals, and pair it with the right music or sound effects.

Trash Tycoon examples:

The ad on the left-hand side drives a sense of urgency by showcasing how trash accumulation becomes a critical issue as the population grows, drawing on the player's compassion. This is supported by tension-building music and subtle environmental sounds.

The second ad by Trash Tycoon drives urgency through financial loss, showing how the trash factory is losing money due to its inability to catch trash from a river. The audio features alarm effects to highlight the financial loss.

Both are successful creatives; however, the first one about trash accumulation, when run on Facebook, saw a +53% increase in ad spend, +40% increase in ROAS, and +90% increase in IPM compared to the second concept, 'money loss.'

Park Match examples:

The ad on the left grabs attention with vibrant visuals, colourful animations, and a fun character. It uses the storyline of an angry stickman stuck in a long line, expressing his impatience (conflict hook). The audio features a slightly frustrated voiceover for relatability and a realistic car horn sound.

For the second ad, the hook showcases a calm and relaxing experience as players sort cars one by one by their color (ASMR hook). This is supported by the audio which features soft, soothing music with gentle sound effects for calming vibes.

Going Balls:

This ad on the left establishes a competitive scenario, pitting players against each other in a race to the finish line.

It builds tension by showing near misses and crashes, keeping the viewer engaged with the outcome. The audio complements this storyline with satisfying and realistic special effects that enhance tension and excitement.

The storyline for the other ad is centred on the ball navigating through a series of increasingly difficult obstacles. This not only keeps the viewer engaged but also builds anticipation. A female voiceover narrates a kid playing the game during a flight, aimed at encouraging viewers to download the game.

The role of AI

It will come as no surprise that AI-generated hooks are becoming a standout trend in UA due to their ability to create, in a matter of seconds, visually striking and engaging content that captures attention.

Common techniques for utilising AI tools to design creative hooks are:

• Inflating objects or characters - this gives a surreal look that is instantly eye-catching
• Liquifying or morphing effects - this includes fluid animations that stretch, morph or melt objects or characters, tapping into ASMR
• Strong or muscular characters - AI-generated transformations such as weak characters becoming muscular superheroes can help catch a player’s eye
• “Is it cake?” trend - the concept from this popular TV show, of making objects look like cake when sliced, is a popular technique to help grab attention 

These concepts work because they grab attention, trigger curiosity, evoke emotions and tie directly into the gameplay. And they’re created with a small fraction of the effort thanks to AI.

There are countless options of creative hooks, so it’s crucial to continually test new ideas, drawing inspiration from other genres to see how to generate a click and not a scroll.