Case study · Zynga
Zynga needed CTV creative it could afford to test at volume.
CTV is valuable inventory for a mobile studio and expensive to produce for. Zynga was paying premium rates for CTV assets through a process that left little room for shared ideation. Flixr took on concepting, scripting, and live-action production for Spades Plus, delivering over a dozen CTV creatives at a lower cost per spot than the alternatives available to the studio.
Premium production, no room to iterate
Zynga operates at portfolio scale across casual, card, and social casino titles. Spades Plus sits at the top of the US Spades category, which means the game already absorbs organic app store demand for the term. On a broad-reach channel like CTV, that category position compounds.
Producing CTV assets was expensive, and the process left little room for collaborative ideation. Live-action execution at CTV quality came at a price per spot that made broad creative testing impractical. Zynga needed more concepts in market without carrying that cost on every one.
A dozen-plus spots, two sources of ideas
Concepts came from both sides, client-led and Flixr-led, each scripted and shot for CTV. Two of the Spades Plus spots are below.
Live action, unusual locations, lower cost per spot
- Ideation and scripting ran as a shared process. Zynga brought concepts, Flixr brought concepts, and both were developed into shooting scripts before anything went into production.
- Production covered unique locations with live-action casting and crew, delivering finished 16:9 CTV creative at a cost per spot below what the studio had been paying elsewhere. The volume is what makes the channel testable: a dozen-plus spots gives a real read on which concepts hold up.
Why CTV inventory is worth unlocking for a category leader
CTV reaches an audience that in-app inventory alone does not, and channels like AppLovin have made it buyable alongside existing UA activity. For Spades Plus the value compounds: it is the top ranking Spades game in the US, so awareness generated on CTV feeds back into app store searches for the term, and those searches land on Zynga's own title. That spillover is specific to category leadership. A title that does not own its search term, Gin Rummy Plus for example, does not capture the same downstream benefit from broad-reach awareness.
About Zynga
One of the largest mobile game publishers in the world, with a portfolio spanning casual, card, and social casino titles. Spades Plus is its flagship Spades game and the top ranking title in the category in the US.