Merge Mansion — 5th Anniversary
Five Years Of Secrets was a high-visibility milestone campaign across UA, social, community, and in-game LiveOps. The campaign used the anniversary as both an acquisition and reactivation moment, with nostalgia translating into a sense of FOMO. I supported the campaign by contributing to early concept development, then shifting to work on the UA film and variants, with additional feedback across adjacent areas like the app icon and store presence.
The script went through several meaningful pivots. The early directions explored various nostalgic and FOMO-inducing concepts from which a VHS-discovery-and-flashbacks structure was chosen. However, through feedback rounds it became clear the VHS device was becoming more important than the story, and the tone was skewing too dark for a celebration. Our team brainstormed several approaches and I wrote the final script around a watch-party setup with a glitch-revealed twist — character reactions doing the comedic work, anniversary signaling kept clean and readable, and a hook that worked for a cold UA audience without leaning on lore.
The 30-second animation was produced with an external partner. The creative feedback I provided focused on the things most likely to make or break the read at short runtime: strong hook, celebratory ambiance with a mysterious tone, the twist in the middle of the film, and the brand-critical character beats. In variants we tested a few emotional angles and hook structures. A ‘trailer-within-a-trailer’ format proved the strongest. Alongside the film I provided feedback on adjacent campaign areas, including the app icon and store presence.
The film delivered moderate UA performance, whereas the campaign as a whole performed well through other channels.