Project Makeover is a perfect example of this. The wildest part of mobile game ads is that they actually work. Project Makeover tries to catch a viewer's attention with shocking imagery so that they download the game to see if it's actually like what the ads show. State of Survival focuses on the gacha mechanics of leveling up specific characters, as this showcases both a gameplay mechanic and the game's character art. There are a lot of marketing practices at play with these ads, but the big one to highlight is how they grab their intended audience's attention. Mobile game ads really only have enough time to highlight what the developers think will bring in the most viewers. They're actually somewhat reminiscent of the 'Settle It in Smash' advertisements that were aired to promote Super Smash Bros.

To State of Survival's credit, these ads often focus on the core hero and city-building mechanics of the game by having two people argue over whose in-game characters and shelters have a higher power. State of Survival also has some animated ads, though a lot of their recent ones have been live-action shorts that focus on people playing the game. However, the actual gameplay of Lilly's Garden is mostly just match-three puzzles with some light home design elements, which is nothing close to the soap opera-like story that the ads tell. Lilly's Garden tends to dance between misleading and creative, as elements of what happens in the ads do actually show up in-game in the form of character dialogue between levels. State of Survival and Lilly's Garden fall into this category with their story-driven ads set within the world of their games. One of the most common kinds of mobile game ads are ones that feature some admittedly impressive CG animation.

State of survival mobile ads