Ad Campaigns
Krafton & Moloco shake up gaming ads with CTV blitz for Cookierun India
MUMBAI: For years, mobile gaming ads have tried to hook users through endless pop-ups, flashy in-app banners, and intrusive five-second videos that you just can’t skip. But Krafton and Moloco had a different game plan—Connected TV (CTV) advertising. And judging by the numbers, they just cracked the next big marketing play.
Krafton, the publisher behind Pubg: Battlegrounds and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), went all-in on CTV ads via LG channels to launch Cookierun India, a localised version of Devsisters’ globally popular Cookierun series. Why? Because while mobile ads target app users, CTV taps into a much bigger screen with an audience that’s notoriously hard to reach. And as it turns out, when you see a fast-paced, sugar-fueled game running on your TV, you’re far more likely to download it.
Krafton realised that while traditional TV commercials (TVCs) build brand awareness, they lack precise performance measurement. Enter Moloco’s CTV ads, which not only put Cookierun India in front of TV audiences but also let Krafton track how many users installed the game after seeing the ad.
By integrating Moloco’s CTV platform with LG Channels, a free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service, the campaign strategically placed ads on major Indian channels like NDTV and India TV. That meant Cookierun India wasn’t just reaching gamers—it was reaching families, casual viewers, and people who never considered downloading a mobile game before.
The results? CTV didn’t just work—it outperformed expectations:
● 22 per cent of users acquired through Moloco’s mobile app campaigns were also exposed to CTV ads—and these users showed two times higher D1 retention than those who only saw mobile ads.
● 14 per cent of CTV viewers were entirely new users, proving that smart TV ads bring in fresh audiences.
● Users acquired through CTV ads had 20 per cent higher D1 retention and 37 per cent higher D7 retention than those from mobile-only campaigns.
Retention in mobile gaming is the holy grail, and CTV just schooled mobile ads in keeping users engaged.
Krafton head of the India performance marketing team Sangbum Kim summed it up, “Moloco’s CTV advertising maximises campaign efficiency through a data-driven approach and differentiates itself from traditional TV advertising by enabling performance measurement. The users acquired through the CTV campaign have shown high retention, proving its potential as a new and effective marketing channel. We expect it to have a positive impact on our future campaign strategies.”
Moloco Korea country manager JaeKyun Ahn added, “This collaboration has demonstrated that CTV advertising is an effective way to reach TV audiences that are difficult to access through mobile app ads, while also enabling advertisers to accurately measure performance. By leveraging CTV channels alongside mobile app campaigns, advertisers can further expand their reach, and this can also serve as a key marketing strategy to acquire high-value users, especially when launching new games.”
With CTV proving its worth, expect more game publishers to take their campaigns beyond mobile screens. Krafton and Moloco’s partnership just set a new standard for game launches in India.
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
