How DeNA achieved a 3.0 creative score with AI-generated mobile game ads

The challenge: creative testing at scale for a casual mobile game

DeNA Co., Ltd. is a Japanese technology and entertainment company with decades of experience developing and distributing mobile titles across global markets. Their latest title, Solitaire Spellbook, blends classic TriPeaks solitaire mechanics with a fantasy spellbook theme: magical power-ups, obstacle cards, spell-based progression, and visually enchanting art designed to stand out in a crowded casual game market.

The target audience is specific: women aged 35-65 who play casual mobile games regularly. Reaching them at scale requires a steady supply of fresh, high-performing creative. And that's where most mobile game publishers hit the same wall.

Mobile game advertising runs on creative velocity. The algorithm needs volume to find winners, audiences fatigue quickly on repeated creative, and the window between launching a new creative and it burning out is getting shorter. For a game like Solitaire Spellbook, with a visually rich world that needs to be shown rather than explained, producing enough creative variants to stay ahead of fatigue is a significant operational challenge.

DeNA came to Creatify with three specific needs: high-performing creative assets, a genuine ideation and exploration process, and a solution to ad fatigue. The question was whether AI-generated creative could meet the quality bar set by their existing benchmark.

How they measure creative performance

DeNA uses a metric called Creative Score, which measures IPM (installs per thousand impressions) relative to a defined benchmark creative. A Creative Score of 1.0 equals the benchmark. Above 1.0 is a win.

It's an unambiguous system, which makes the results below straightforward to interpret.

The solution: Creatify Studio

DeNA worked with Creatify Studio, Creatify's managed service that combines human creative strategy with AI-powered production. A dedicated creative strategist handles ideation, direction, and quality review, while Creatify's AI handles production at volume.

What makes that combination valuable for a game advertiser isn't just speed. Creatify's team has worked across thousands of creatives across game genres, audience segments, and platforms. That volume of learned signal means the strategist comes in knowing which hook structures tend to work for casual puzzle audiences, which visual styles retain attention past the first three seconds, and which angles have already been exhausted by competitors in the category. That institutional knowledge compresses the learning curve significantly.

The AI layer adds what a human team can't: the ability to produce enough creative variety from day one that the algorithm has real signal to work with. Rather than launching a campaign with three or four assets and waiting to see what happens, DeNA could enter each round with 10-12 variants across different hooks, visual treatments, and messaging angles, all reviewed and approved before they shipped.

The workflow across each round: brief the creative direction, generate a batch of video ad variants, review every asset for brand safety and quality before delivery, deploy, measure Creative Score, feed results back into the next round.

Results

DeNA ran multiple rounds of creative testing with Creatify, with additional rounds in progress at time of publication. Across completed rounds, the majority of creatives surpassed the benchmark Creative Score of 1.0, with the win rate improving as each round's learnings fed into the next.

More significant than the overall win rate is what sat at the top.

The highest Creative Score in the Creatify collaboration

The top-performing creative from the Creatify collaboration scored 3.0, the highest Creative Score achieved across the work with Creatify. A score of 3.0 means the creative generated 3x the installs per thousand impressions of DeNA's established benchmark.

Two more creatives scored 2.6 and 2.1 respectively.

The pattern across the top performers is worth noting. The highest-converting creative had a lower hook rate than the other two, which suggests a strong self-selection effect: the audience that made it past the hook was highly qualified and converted at a significantly higher rate. The creatives with higher hook rates pulled in more users at the top of the funnel, converting a smaller but still strong share.

Different creatives are doing different jobs, and the volume of testing is what surfaces those distinctions.

Why Creatify Studio works great for mobile game ads

Mobile game advertising has a creative problem most industries don't face at the same intensity. Games need to show gameplay, convey feel, and signal audience fit all within the first few seconds of a video ad. The creative is the product demo.

That puts enormous pressure on volume and variety. A single winning creative for a casual game has a short shelf life before the algorithm exhausts the audience that responds to it. The answer is a continuous pipeline of fresh variants, tested against a clear benchmark, with rapid iteration based on what the data returns.

For game developers scaling user acquisition, Creatify Studio offers a specific combination: the strategic judgment to know what to test, and the production capacity to test enough of it that the algorithm has real options from day one. Every asset is reviewed by a human creative expert before delivery, so nothing goes to market unchecked.

About DeNA

DeNA (pronounced "D-N-A") develops and operates a broad range of mobile and online services including games, e-commerce and entertainment content distribution. Established in Tokyo in 1999 as a small startup with the launch of an online auction service, DeNA has continuously expanded its business portfolio.

DeNA Games

About Creatify Studio

Creatify Studio is a managed creative service: human-led strategy, AI-powered production, with a top 1% creative expert reviewing every asset before delivery. For game developers and publishers who need high-volume creative testing without the overhead of traditional production, it's a direct path from brief to benchmark-beating ads. 10-100+ ads per client per week, 24-hour turnaround, unlimited revisions.

Learn more about Creatify Studio