3 Million Plays Achieved! What Pull-Type Marketing Works for Generation Alpha?

<Table of Contents>
▼ Creating Attachment to Robot Protagonist Roz Through "Active Experiences"

▼ Rapid Updates Key to Roblox Success

▼ Leveraging Global Reach to Build a Lasting, Loving Fandom

Fostering Affection for the Robot Protagonist, Roz, Through "Active Experiences"

──First, please explain the concept behind the movie promotion strategy on Roblox. What led to the start of this project?

Oda: At Dentsu Group, I'm responsible for building alliances with domestic and international partners, including investments and capital participation, and translating these into joint business ventures and solutions. Our collaboration with the immersive platform Roblox and the Japanese startup ambr, which handled game development, is part of this effort.

Roblox is a platform enjoying immense popularity among younger generations like Alpha and Gen Z worldwide, with numerous companies and brands participating by distributing games and items.

Related Article:Gen Alpha is hooked! The impact of the "immersive social platform" played daily by about 80 million people
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When Takahashi's Entertainment Business Center (EBC) approached us about new promotional methods for "Roz of the Wild Island" (hereafter "Roz"), we felt it would be a great fit for Roblox, especially since it's a family-oriented film, particularly appealing to children.

Takahashi: Media that can reach children, one of this film's main targets, is limited. In that regard, Roblox is a platform with an overwhelming number of young users, often referred to as Generation Alpha. I thought it was perfect for promoting "Roz."

Furthermore, this film is the first adaptation of the original children's book. Therefore, we first needed users to become familiar with the robot protagonist, Roz, and the story itself. We hoped that by offering users an active experience through Roz's avatar in a virtual space (*1), they would develop a sense of familiarity with the character.

※1 Virtual space = A unique world created by users or companies within Roblox. Many virtual spaces are offered as games. Known as "Experiences" in the English version.
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Oda: "Roz" was already using Roblox for promotions in the US, and a Roz avatar for Roblox had already been created. For the Japanese promotion, we decided to use this avatar and create a game that also aligned with the movie's concept: "players become Roz and search for animals."

The development team at ambr, led by Soeda, handled everything from the game design to the field design. With only the Roz avatar and some BGM available as materials, they essentially built the game from scratch.

Soeda: At ambr, I primarily handle CG production. This time, I served as director and designed the player character and field. With a small team of five people from our company and our partner, we completed the game in about two months.

Oda: In addition to projects like creating and operating the Tokyo Game Show's virtual venue, ambr also develops its own products. One such product is "gogh," an avatar support app that has attracted over a million users globally. We feel that the experience and corporate culture gained from creating such IP-rich content is being fully leveraged in our Roblox virtual space (game) development.

──Game development often conjures images of large teams working over extended periods, yet this was created by a small team in just two months. Were there specific considerations regarding adapting a CG animated film into a game?

Oda: First, we had the ambr production team watch the movie and discuss how to translate it into a game. Since this was promotional material aimed at people completely unfamiliar with the work, we deliberately avoided overloading it with too much movie information.

Soeda: Developing games on Roblox requires understanding the player's perspective. Even if you leverage Roblox, content that blatantly feels like "advertising pushed by adults" gets called out by players as "not understanding the game."

To grasp Roblox users' sensibilities, our entire team holds weekly Roblox play sessions. We cultivate that user perspective by discussing things like, "This part was fun," and then incorporating ideas like, "Let's try adding that to the next game." We continuously refine the game even after release.

Oda: Based on the Roblox user characteristics Mr. Soeda just mentioned, for game design, we aimed for a game that strikes a balance: prioritizing "what's fun for Roblox users" as the core foundation while also introducing them to the appeal of movies.

Therefore, we decided to combine the movie's theme—"Rosie encounters animals on a wild island"—with the popular "Find" genre on Roblox (games where players search for and collect items or characters on a map).

Soeda: On Roblox, there are several "usual staple" genres that everyone loves. There's a strong tendency for these "usual staples" to be preferred over novelty or originality. Find games are one such staple. This time, we kept the structure simple: players take on Roz's form and find 20 animals scattered across the map in sequence.

──What are the gameplay features?

Soeda: Each time a player finds an animal, they gain a new "skill" related to that animal. For example, Ros, who initially can only walk on two legs and jump, gains the ability to run fast on all fours after finding a deer, or climb rock walls on tiptoes after finding a crab (laughs).

Takahashi: This process of "Ros's avatar running around the island searching for animals" directly mirrors Ros's story in the film, where she's accepted as one of the wild animals. There were actual scenes in the movie where she searched for animals too, so the game naturally aligned with the film's themes of "diversity" and "coexistence."

As a result, I believe it became an output that exceeded our expectations— —where players develop affection for the character Rose within their gameplay experience while also engaging with the work's themes.

Rapid updates are the key to success on Roblox

──After releasing the game two weeks before the movie's premiere, you steadily gained players and surpassed your target of 100,000 plays immediately after the movie's release, right?

Soeda: Roblox offers robust analytics for player session duration, entry/exit points, and revisit rates. Developers can iterate updates based on this feedback to grow player numbers.

As engagement time and revisit rates increase, the game becomes more likely to appear in the home screen recommendations, driving further traffic. Successfully securing a spot in those recommendations was one key factor in this project's success.

Oda: Like other UGC (※2) content platforms, Roblox has algorithms designed to discover outstanding content that users enjoy and recommend it to a wider audience. As Mr. Soeda mentioned, its developer analytics are excellent. This allows developers to numerically analyze changes in player behavior driven by improvements and effectively implement the PDCA cycle, which is another compelling aspect.

※2 UGC = User Generated Content. Roblox focuses heavily on the creator economy; the majority of virtual spaces (games), avatars, and sold items are created by users.

Soeda: This time, we discovered that 20% of players were quitting before finding their first animal shortly after launch. So, we repositioned the first animal to a spot where it could be found immediately after starting play, and the retention rate shot up significantly.

Oda: After that, we iterated updates in short cycles, such as increasing the number of animals from 20 to 50. As a result, we surpassed 200,000 plays within about three weeks of release. Subsequently, traffic from recommendations surged dramatically, ultimately reaching 3 million plays as of July 14th. While the play count reached 3 million, the number of impressions where thumbnails appeared on users' screens via recommendations exceeded 67 million.

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──So you grew by analyzing players and continuously updating, effectively making the algorithm work for you.

Soeda: After improving the initial Find feature, play counts really started climbing. We also adjusted the game's difficulty by having the children of our "Roblox native" employees play it. Furthermore, since Roblox emphasizes accumulating many "small successes," we carefully designed elements like the "congratulations" mechanism when an animal is found.

Oda: Ultimately, traffic from ads was minimal. Nearly 90% of our users came organically—from the home screen and friend recommendations. For our final update, we distributed 500 avatar items in two batches. Users were so enthusiastic that both batches sold out within an hour and a half.

We completed updates as of March, but the results were so positive that I can't help but wonder how much further we could have grown if we'd kept updating.

──What were the key points that led to achieving 30 times the target number of plays?

Oda: This success was largely due to Mr. Soeda and his team maintaining a rapid cycle of analysis and improvement every day. I think this would have been difficult with a large, heavy development team. On Roblox, where continuous improvements based on user feedback are essential, starting small and refining while scaling up effectiveness can lead to great product development.

Takahashi: Regarding the budget, since Roblox's influence in movie promotions was still unknown, this was a trial initiative, so we couldn't allocate a massive budget. Despite its small scale, achieving results exceeding our expectations firmly proved the effectiveness of Roblox initiatives, especially for younger audiences.

Another key success factor was that while "Wild Island Rosie" was based on a children's book, it was a new IP as a film. This meant the rights holder, Universal Pictures in the US, was more flexible about how the IP could be used. We had relatively high freedom to adapt it into the game's world, which I believe contributed to the success.

I oversaw the game while maintaining close communication with the US team. This time, we prioritized creating an experience enjoyable for Roblox users. We carefully integrated the film's worldview while respecting Roblox's specifications and the types of gameplay its users prefer.

──What specifically do you mean by "high degree of freedom"?

Soeda: For example, in classic Find-style games, there are often platforms in the air that players jump on to climb higher. But the movie's setting is a realistic wild island, so naturally, there are no such platforms. However, Roblox users expect these kinds of playable gimmicks, so we incorporated such elements into the game.

Takahashi: While conditions vary by project, Based on this success in Japan, we can envision various forms of collaboration with Roblox.

Leveraging our global reach, we aim to build a beloved, enduring fandom.

──What advantages did you reaffirm for promoting on Roblox through this campaign?

Oda: There are several characteristics of campaigns using Roblox. First, it allows us to reach the particularly challenging target audience of Generation Alpha. Moreover, it facilitates "pull-type" campaigns that elicit active user engagement.

Some ads are "push-type" and tend to get skipped immediately by users. However, this campaign achieved an average playtime of 7.4 minutes. Users who visit the virtual space displayed through Roblox's recommendations actively engage with the IP or brand of their own volition, naturally leading to higher engagement.

Of course, creating a good game is essential as a prerequisite, but I believe there are few other media platforms capable of generating this level of engagement.

──Roblox is known for its robust analytics for developers. What trends did you see in user demographics this time?

Oda: One notable characteristic was that 39.1% of all players were under 9 years old, the largest share across all age groups. This confirms our initial assumption that the target children were enjoying it. Another point is that despite being a Japan-focused initiative, it organically reached and was enjoyed by players worldwide.

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Soeda: Roblox places strong emphasis on its automatic translation feature. When user-generated content like games is published, it's automatically translated into multiple languages. This is a major advantage, allowing us to reach users worldwide at low cost and on a level playing field.

Oda: While this campaign was primarily domestic promotion timed with the film's Japanese release, the largest number of players came from the US. Ultimately, players joined from over 180 countries.

This demonstrates that Roblox is also an effective strategy for promoting Japanese IP overseas. I believe there is significant potential for Dentsu Inc., with its global network, to leverage its capabilities in spreading Japanese content and IP worldwide.

──As a movie promotion strategy, how do you see Roblox being utilized going forward? Or if there were any challenges you encountered this time, please share them.

Takahashi: We haven't been able to measure whether this campaign actually drove traffic to the movie, so that remains a challenge. For example, in overseas promotions for other films, there are cases in the US where they created a virtual movie space within Roblox and successfully boosted sales by placing a ticket purchase path within that virtual space. Encouraging purchases on a platform dominated by younger users presents a significant hurdle in Japan. However, if we could achieve this here, it might enable the kind of effectiveness measurement we couldn't do this time.

Personally, I think it might be better to view Roblox less as a platform for driving purchases and more as a platform for building a fanbase. It seems well-suited not just for one-off promotions limited to a specific period, but for continuously releasing content over the long term that keeps users actively engaged with the movie's world and nurtures fan loyalty. Creating such a model would be ideal.

Soeda: While many existing IPs are brought into Roblox, conversely, many original Roblox contents also become IPs themselves. Even for existing IPs, if they hit big on Roblox, it seems interesting to then spread those elements beyond Roblox. Not just this time, but ambr has accumulated know-how on what resonates with Roblox users, so we want to continue developing games for various IPs going forward.

Oda: For this youth-focused initiative, I believe we succeeded in creating a case study by leveraging Roblox and engaging with its culture. I feel that using Roblox for initiatives holds significant potential for globally delivering IP holders' content.

At the same time, engaging with community culture and communication styles is crucial, not just for Roblox. When delivering IP or brands, designing touchpoints between the community/users and the content you want to deliver should reliably generate hits. By focusing on user experience, we hope to continue working with IP holders to leverage platforms like Roblox and become a force that cultivates content fandoms.

"Roz of the Wild Island" is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, U-NEXT, Apple TV+, Hulu, and more!

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