Mastering Creative at Scale: How PokPok Builds Ads That Work

But at the end of the day, I think it was a mistake for us because it created so many false positives that it wasn't more efficient in the end when you think about money because just like producing all these and then putting us in in the main campaign and them underperforming cost us money. Hello world. Welcome back to the Pocket Gamer Podcast with your hosts, me, Brian Baglo, and the goddess of growth, our very own Peggy ans. Hello, Peggy. It's wonderful to see you.
Thank you, Brian. And I was just thinking literally we have to, in fact, someone gave me the idea. One of our viewers is like, we need to do a sizzle reel of every time you do this because so far you have not yet repeated yourself. I don't know how you do it, but jocks come up with a new one every time. I, you know, I don't just sit idle between these recording sessions, Peggy. I I'm fiercely creative. You're on it. You know, hey, I started in games as a writer, so

there you go.
I suspect I might have done the same one at least once or twice. Um, I'm not that creative.
I don't know. I don't know. Well, hey, speaking of creative, that brings me to what we're going to do because I spoke with our guest today at MAO and we were chatting and it's just like, you know what, this is too good just to leave on my own podcast, Mobile Groove. I have to bring it to the Pocket Gamer audience because everyone is talking about creative and everyone is looking for ways to experiment but also drive results. That is what's really important and that's what our guest does today. It's Felix Puedro. He is VP of growth and marketing at Pockpock.
Great app, Playroom for kids age 2 to eight. So, it's calm, it's adfree, and it is growing and it is growing fast. Probably part of that is because he's built an creative testing engine and

he's going to lift the lid on it for us today, Felix, because hey, this is what you're about. You are about creatives and about experimenting with them. So, we're ready for a master class. No pressure, of course. Great to have you.
Well, I'm happy to be here,
it's it's an absolute delight. I can't wait to hear more. As the father of an 8-year-old, I I feel that I should know more about this and and anything to prize Roblox out of his fingers right now, quite frankly. Um, but Felix, before we dive in, you're not just rocking creatives. You started out as a drummer in a rock band touring Mexico. Am I right? Can you give us a little background on yourself, please?
Yeah, that that's correct. In another life, it was in a rock band and yeah, we we were based out of Canada, but uh because we're making music in Spanish, uh we ended up having our agent was in Mexico. So, we toured Mexican Mexico two or three times, I think, which was very, very exciting. Maybe a little bit more exciting than creative for mobile apps.

Now, I'm I'm I'm more into growing apps. Uh, so I've been doing it for about 10 years now. Like before I was working for a sleep app called Better Sleep. I was their head of of marketing. So we we grew that company until it was sold. Um, and now working for Pockpock that Peggy described. So a kids app that has educational learning games for kids 228. Um, and how we differentiate oursel is that it's a non-addictive screen time. like we do everything in our power to make it a lot less over simulating than anything out there. So removing any addictive hooks, uh winning or losing, anything that could make the app moorish that like it just can't get enough and get into a tantrum. That's uh what we're about.
We talk about what you're good at and creative that goes from rock to pockpock. And this is exciting for me because we're all about performance and we're all about scale, but we're not

really talking about how to do it. It's just like, yes, we have to do this. And here you scale meta ads from 10 to 70 plus. You're aiming for much, much more. But more importantly, without losing your mind, without growing a giant team, taking a very methodical approach to that. And I think that's what's most intriguing is that you're showing it can be done with the right approach. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Yeah, I I think a lot of this is is unsexy in terms of like doing that type of scaling creative is to a certain degree good project management. So a lot of like is is structure processes having the the right stuff in place. I usually bring it down to three pillars um of how to do it in a way that is manageable. First of all is it has to do with a team having the right people in place. Uh if you're a small team like having people who can wear different hats with no overlap. So like you got different

expertise and everyone's very efficient. AI comes in at this point also to to stretch people's uh cap capabilities a little bit. And when it comes to production, um, then the processes are super important and that goes with like good naming convention, uh, good spreadsheet, good knowledge management in general because you're managing thousands and thousands of ads and you have to remember which one worked for what reason, uh, when you tested it. So like just being able to access that very fast is becomes really important. And finally, the I think one of the most fun part of it is uh iteration, mastering the art of iteration. So like being able to spin ads um very fast and tweak them very uh in minute ways but in ways that have impact that has been very transformational for us.
So let's unpack that a little if we if we can. Felix, um walk us through that workflow. How does it look in practice?

Um you've said it's not about more for the sake of more. It's structured clear hypothesis and those small tweaks to maximize impact. Can you give us some detail?
Yes. Uh so how we approach it is at first it was a little bit less structured and it was a bit like throwing spaghettes at the wall kind of like trying a lot of things very quickly. um which kind of works for a while but it becomes very confusing uh to communicate things in the team to know what worked why it worked. So we moved on from that to go to um a highly structured process where basically every ad sets that we test every every
kind of concept what we test we voice out our hypothesis behind it. So like everyone in the team has alignment. Uh if it's let's say oh we're going to try um a cartoon in a plane that showcase pock why it's it's great with kids that

are two years old like we need just to to put it down in writing and kind of like say okay that's why I think it's going to work. Um, so having that approach makes it a lot easier when it comes to evaluating results and also just kind of doubling down on it too because then we can be like okay like this has worked um this hypothesis has worked how can we push that farther like um do we take that and put it in another setting. So basically having those really clear um hypothesis have really helped us um shape the discussion that goes around ads and that goes a long way because if you can't really like verbalize what you think worked it becomes super confusing and then you're just basically just producing ads and throwing stuff at the wall. That that makes a lot of sense because you have to know what the hypothesis was or the variables that you would even look at to

know if you've moved anything. How do you pair the thinking of the creative with the testing of the creative so that you understand that later and also your team because you said yourself they're all sort of hands on deck. So everyone needs to understand just to start the hypothesis itself.
Yeah. I I think some of the things we use are very low tech just like Excel spreadsheets just when it comes to
all right
having the data and like fetching it but that is just like to store it what I think is the most uh precious for us is kind of like the visualization of data and ads that are being tested. So what we do is that we use a Figma board that that is looking a bit insane these days because basically it's all the ads that we test. It's all the data behind it but visual visualized in a way that it's kind of easy to understand at a glance and then what is really appealing with

that is that we structure it week by week. So every week we have our creative meeting on Mondays. So we go over it. We look, okay, this is what we've tested over the last week. This is what came up on top. This is what underperformed and this is like what did really bad. And then we dig into it. So we look at the creative we tested the different iteration. Is there anything in the winning creative that we could pick on? Like is it the copy that work? Is it because we changed the setting? if it's a UGC creator, is it like a UGC creator that has worked in the past? So, by having this medium, it's really easy to dissect, add notes, um, and then also explore what we do next like just pitch ideas like okay, that worked. What can we do more? Like, have we reached sometime we reach the maximum with iteration? Because when you've tested like 50 copy like 50 different like

creators, like at some point you're like, okay, well, we've done it all. like maybe we work on another concept. But yeah, having this visualization I think was the biggest game changer because before we had more of a spreadsheet format where we could click on ads and then see them but really putting everything out there
visually is important. So actually what it should be able to do and maybe has done for you Felix is allow you to revisit older creatives and resurrect them you know bring them back make them relevant so nothing is lost basically
100% like although we like to believe like in a spreadsheet everything's there and it stays there but it's just like
it's hard to like look at a thing and like
I don't know it doesn't activate the neuron in the same way as seeing it and remembering oh yeah like there was this thing about this creative. I think the copy kind of worked. Let's try it again.

And it has worked for us in the past where we went back on another creative. We're like, "Oh, actually like this. I don't know the clickthrough rate on this one was really excellent." Like, let's see. Maybe we're just not good at conveying enough value about uh our game to really push it through. So then we we revisit it and we're able to make it a winner. So that's that's yeah that's a big aspect of it by laying it everything down you don't forget about things and also uh on Figma you can add video so we put everything in a video format so you can also like click on it and then you're like oh yeah whereas just having to like click on links add that extra friction that sometimes make you like oh you know what I'm not going to look at it but
you might be missing out on something.
I get it. I get it. all at a glance. That has a power, Brian, when you can see it and and and work from that. I mean, it's probably like the iteration that you did when you were working on

games. Yeah. And this is working on the creatives of games.
Absolutely. Absolutely. It's that perspective. It's, as you said, the holistic view, but also seeing everything in context and and I'm with you, Felix. I've used Figma for some quite big data gathering um projects in the recent past, the last 18 months. Was there was there anything you tried that that didn't work um maybe the way you expected? And if so, did you throw it out or did you learn?
Yeah, I I'd say with creative testing, most of what we we come up with doesn't work like 99% which is just part of it, but that is completely normal. I would say like maybe
one of our growing pains and it's still something that is a work in progress is the actual creative testing. how we set it up on the app platform. Some on meta more particularly. One thing we we were always testing different methods to creative test uh and cost is always

something that comes up because it can be really costly and there's not a lot of necessarily performance that comes out of it when it's at the testing phase. Um, so for a while we started to test in a cheaper way like a lot of other marketers do for for games. Uh, so basically for a less good event like downloads instead of something a bit further down the funnel like a start trial or like a a purchase. So we did downloads in cheaper markets I think on Android where it was a bit cheaper. uh which at first was exciting because we got a lot more data a lot of stuff looked really promising but at the end of the day I think it was a mistake for us because it created so many false positives that it wasn't more efficient in the end when you think about money because just like producing all these and then putting us in in the main campaign and them underperforming cost us money but also I think the worst

aspect was for the team it was very deflating to have this oh this idea that this ad is successful and then doesn't perform and then this ad is successful it doesn't perform. So that was a learning for us. So then we move to something that is more expensive basically your testing campaign [clears throat]
is the exact same setting as our main campaign. So like a very qualitative event. So like start trial in the US on iOS and it's a lot costlier but it's also the number like the level of confidence for something that wins is is so much higher that uh and it's so much more encouraging too because when something works in testing it usually works in the main campaign. So you can get excited about it and not like oh it won but is it truly a winner which was a bit depressing for the team. And that's a really important point because a lot of people they're like, "We'll test in a market that's nearly like your target market but cheaper."

So, so this was this was the way to go. A little bit costlier perhaps, but um but something that paid off. I'm also curious about the details here because I thought as a master class, you know, let's get into some of this. Some it's going to be a little bit geeky, but some people are going to say yes. Thank goodness someone is going to this detail because it's things like the folders, the naming, the feedback loops. Um, you did a lot and maybe maybe we've inspired you to just write a blog at some point and capture it or do something to really share it. But share something, a small tweak that made a big difference in your testing output or the velocity of your team in being able to test.
Yeah. Um I think if we if we go into more details, I think naming convention was uh very important for us and it's something that maybe is like overlooked

sometimes. Uh but as you get a lot more ads, uh it becomes really important to make it super granular because you're going to bite your fingers when you're trying to analyze older creatives when you were just like, you know, like that was really quick. Uh when you didn't have that many, you're going to just name something like mom with red background, but then next thing you know, you have like 500 of those. So like then you it becomes a nightmare to find it. So I would say even at the beginning it doesn't really hurt to be serious about it and try to get put as much information into your naming convention as possible including a unique code. That's something that we did that is very important. A unique code that stays the same across everywhere we test it. Um in our in our Dropbox it's the same. So if something works on Google Ads it's that code and it's the same on meta. So that becomes easier when you parse data to see how

stuff plays out across different networks. So having that unique code is incredibly important but also putting a lot of information in it. Um if it's a UG identifier right Philix I mean it becomes how you can find it anywhere. Just curious how long is now how long is the names of your naming convention? How many
uh it's it's it's very long I would say in terms of character but like
it's it's a long sentence uh because we include stuff as like the number of iteration it is in on that concept uh often like the name the UGC creator because that's another thing if you're able to identify that working with one person always yield better um CTR or something like that then maybe you want to work with these people and not so much with the people who don't really engage um viewers in the same way. So there's that and then there's like the general angle that we have behind it. Um there's the music sometimes. So I it is

it is very long but I'd say it's worth it uh to to have that because then it really helps when you want to dig deep and uh push your analysis. So practical everyone sort of glosses over Brian, you know, I thought let's
look at these details. They matter.
Yeah, they they absolutely do. And and Felix, speaking as somebody who was there, you know, when when Windows 3.1 came out with eight character file names, um, believe you me, I love the future. Um, it's so much it's so much easier. It's I my first writing gig was Grand Theft Auto. it was done in Excel and yeah this was this was not fun this was not fun so I I I absolutely respect the naming convention and having that kind of that um syntax that's shared across the team can make a a huge difference um but on that note with so many variations with so many creatives with so much you know different

information um how do you sort the signal to the noise you know the signal clarity must have to be really really specific So what are the key metrics for you guys? What do you track daily, weekly, monthly, you know, and to find out what's worth iterating and and what needs to just stop? And for me, I I would really like to know when do you decide to stop? Is it when you've squeezed everything out of it or, you know, is there a point where you can say very clearly this has had its day?
That's a great question and that's something uh that keeps me up at night. like have you have we stopped just before it was going to work or have we pushed too far and it was never going to work.
Um because you get those situation that there's a creative eight iteration it that blows up completely and is like the best thing you've ever done but if you stop at iteration seven you would have gotten nothing. So it's really [clears throat]
maddening to know how to when to stop.

Uh but you can also not continue forever with every iteration otherwise you're you're kind of stuck pushing stuff uh forever. So when it comes to um the metrics we look at, I think the most important for us is the metric that is um kind of the most qualitative for meta with our current setup, which is kind of we can send enough signal to to a meta so it can optimize well with it, but it's also qualitative enough that it correlates very strongly with uh purchases. So that would be the cost per trial. Uh we are um an app with a hard pay wall. So we don't really have any free users that makes it simpler like if you want to go forward you have to do a start trial. So this is the main metric we look at uh be it for main campaigns or in creative testing. But for creative testing it's also really important to

dig further because sometime the trial are going to come with later iteration. Maybe you've got a glimpse of something great where you grab the for us it's our main audience is millennial moms. So you're able to grab their attention but you're not able to sell it on them quite yet but it still can be a very worthwhile um endeavor to to pursue this ad. So then we look at um click-through rate is a good indication of is there is there something to it like are people curious about it still? So this is important. We looked at how the clicks convert to download. That could be also a good indicator like oh people you you give them something they're interested in, they download it but they don't continue to trial. So like maybe you haven't sold them enough on it, explain enough about it, maybe haven't pushed the right value proposition. So we basically have that uh and we have we look at a lot of other things too but we

built benchmarks basically of like if it doesn't reach that at minimum often we we disregard it because otherwise we would just pursue every ad and iterate on everything which we can't based on bandwidth. So we focus on that and kind of like uh iterate but it's a bit also more um it's not only metrics. Sometimes there's a bit of art to it or gut feeling like sometimes you might twist stuff a bit if you're like oh like I know the metrics are not great but there's something in it that uh that I feel is important. Um and that's fun with ads too. like it is it is very uh like kind of scientific in a way but you can also follow your gut sometime if if you did something's good
wanted to follow back up with what we discussed you know you're doing this as a small team a small team with big results that's something amazing you're also doing with AI so can we just go back a step and understand that in this

process very important pay attention to details naming convention bold folders, Figma, all of that. That's to enable your team to look at it, wash, rinse, repeat. Those are humans. So, where is the interplay between your team and AI? And how many people do you have on your team? I'm just curious when we talk about a small team.
Um I we're six, I believe, uh currently, including myself. So um and
that is uh there's a UA manager, there's a creative strategist, there's um three designer that are that are freelancer currently. Um, and then there's also someone else that works on our team uh that does um uh kind of like influencers uh and also affiliates which we kind of leverage also true ads to get like um

really good footage of of uh of like families interacting with Bachbox. So that's something that has worked
pretty well for us. Um, but when it comes to AI, so we we try to plug it in in as many ways as possible through throughout that team. Um, so it goes from uh being able to ingest a lot of ads uh as quick as possible. So we we u use kitchen.io to really be able to upload a lot of creatives in a quick time so the UA manager can focus on ideation and other things. We use it um a lot when it comes to brainstorming kind of like copywriting to JJ GPT or claude. We often I I think all their winners are not directly like stuff that was outputed by them. They're variations of that like we we tweak them a bit but some some ideas uh we use it for research as well to like compile um you

know psychoraphic studies about who we're talking to. Is there something that irks them like a painoint we haven't found? So that can be uh really useful using deep research to like scour through Reddit or um reviews uh from from users like is there anything that comes up a lot that our human brain is not good enough in pattern recognition to kind of play latch up onto so that can be good. I think though where it has the most impact is when it comes to asset generation. So generating um aesthetic creative uh we use it quite a bit also to create uh videos B-roll for us it's really useful because we rely on families and parents with kids and if we have to wait for someone a real human to do it the turnaround's going to be long especially if it's something very precise like
we want a mom with two kids about three to four in a plane at night playing pockpock is like we could get that but

the turnaround's not going to be 24 hours. It's going to be like we're going to have to find someone who's traveling. So, for that type of thing, it it's it's been very transformational and allowed us to test a lot quicker. That's amazing that and it and it makes so much sense you know um when you are iterating when you're coming up with so much content being able to sort of dip back in when I I I spent some time doing PR and marketing Felix and the use of stock photography as we was the only thing we had at that point. Um, I grew to loathe the the number of gamer images that were in the the major carriers cuz they were used by everybody so often
at once.
Yeah. Yeah. So, you couldn't differentiate yourself from the competition. So, I absolutely understand and that that makes sense. Um, and was there any time that you deliberately stepped back from AI and and thought actually you know what no this is this is not working for us? Well, actually like one thing that is not working so

well for us is when we're trying to fully replace user created content, especially for longer videos, like let's say a mom in a car talking about pock and and you see the kids behind, we've tried a lot of AI versions of that. Mhm.
But in my experience, as long as it's like the snippet is longer than like 3 second, I think people potentially like catch up to it and they're like it's AI and it either cheapens the experience or reads too much as an ad compared
to what could feel organic that so far nothing really has worked with that. The only way we can make it work somehow is if it's a kind of a a mis like a mish mash of different ones and there's like an AI mom that lasts two seconds. Um that can work, but it seems that however much we try when it's a bit longer um there's still something that reads as fake. Um, maybe that's something that's

going to disappear with the newer models getting better and better to the point that it's really indistinguishable, but I don't think we're quite there yet. At least from from my experience.
I get it because people are watching it and there are dead giveaways, not just six fingers, but uh other dead giveaways to tell you you're doing something in AI. Um, let's talk about the creatives because talking to more marketers, yourself included, Felix, when we were chatting and it was like, well, you know, creative testing, that's the power in the studio, you know, it's showing improvement at [clears throat] at all levels or it should be showing improvement at all levels. It's partly in the ads, but it's also, you know, in the process itself. Where do you see this having a bigger impact in the studio where maybe it's already having that at Pockpock? Because these efficiencies, this creativity that that carries over that can improve the that

can improve the game, the product, the playroom that you've created. Um it can inform other campaigns. Uh you want to be a brand actually, Felix, which is a very brave um goal indeed for gaming companies. A lot of gaming studios want to be brands. How does that all work together?
Yeah, that that's something that is sometimes I believe underutilized as as a
advantage um is how much dialogue happens when you do ads with your your prospective buyers and just like your audience. Um, so basically you're pitching ideas at them through every ads and seeing what connects and you can use that as a tool to basically um validate what people like about the product. Like is there anything that's connecting more? Is that anything that like people really are enthused by by the product? Um, you can even technically like reverse engineer some features, you

know, like pitch something that doesn't exist in the app and then make it uh, which is kind of a smart way and a cost-effective way to to develop features. Although like you have to be careful because people might be a bit angry that what you're pitching doesn't exist but that's something we're using to kind of like when we come up with new uh games in pock which has a slew of mini learning games [clears throat]
that when we do ads and we find that there's a lot of uh a high recept like a good reception from parents in the ad. it's something that we're going to bring back to the production team and being like, "Oh, maybe it's worth looking back into it and see if we should develop more of that." Um, so that's something we're trying to use as much as possible. And it's it's a great tool. Basically, you're always dialoguing with uh with those with your audience and they're going to tell you often what they like, what they don't like. So yeah, I think it's a great way to kind of like align

production in a way that makes sense and make sure you're really connecting with your your users. Now that's that's interesting because uh you're marketing to the parents but being played by the kids. And so do you ever see a disconnect between what works with your your customer um i.e. the parent and your player which would be the the child? Yeah, I I think it's two completely different strategy. I think when we're doing ads, we're really talking to the parents. Uh because we've tried well, we're not talking to the kids in any in any cases just because of their demographic. 228 like we we wouldn't target them. So, when it comes to the ad strategy, we're really just digging into parent psychology. what do they want um as a as a learning game for kids? What is important for them? Um for instance, it being offline is incredibly important because a lot of them use it in planes

or in cars or like at the doctor's office where like maybe Wi-Fi is not great. So
in that case, we really have to dig into that. When it becomes important to to like dig into kids and how they use it is for production, right? So we do a lot of user testing. Uh we do um a lot of like uh polls and like we we we ask kids what they want. We really try to create something that will make them excited because at the end of the day if you give the iPad to your kid and they don't want to play with it because it's boring. Like it doesn't matter how well you sold to the parents like they're still not going to pay for it.
No.
Yeah. That that makes sense. I mean, what you're doing is clearly working because some of the accolades are incredible. Um, in only two years, you know, Time 100 most influential companies, 2025, 2023 app store award winner, 2021 Apple Design Award winner. Um, you know, you're you're picking up a

lot of uh silverware and trophies, but also it's a hard pay wall. No ads, no free tier. So, what led to that decision? Um I I wasn't there at the inception of the company. So that was actually a decision that was prior to me. But I think it's a decision that makes a lot of sense um when deciding about what I call a soft payw wall. So like something you can X away and still use some kind of free features in a game or an app um or a hard pay wall. I think it's really important to understand where you stand in your category and how you're going to um st like break through the noise. And in our case launching so the app was launched in 2021 and they were
over 100,000 kids app on the app store alone. So when you come to a market like that, you're not going to like organically like stand out through keywords and stuff like that. like you're going to have to do um some paid

UA and if you do that I think um a hard pay wall can be very attractive for a bunch of reasons like you're going to send really good signal to the app platform like people can only select that um you're going to be able to have better conversion rates so like it can make it a bit easier at that point to make um paid paid ads work and also I think one of the biggest plus of a strategy like that is that it brings a lot of focus in the team. You're not thinking about like oh what game should be free what what game should not be free where are we going to add other pay walls like are we going to send push notification at this point. So like that becomes a whole area that you can focus on that at the end of the day don't bring a ton of results for subscription apps because even if you have a premium and a soft payw wall I think the stats are something like 80% of people convert

during like the first 24 hours. So like basically
all all that noise is just to bring small percentage of u of upside. So, I think I think depending on the category, like how you you can stand out marketing wise, it can be a smart decision. But I believe you lose out on virality a little bit with a hard pay wall because it's just like harder to share, right? Like if it's something you can try for free, like your friends are going to try it and then they're going to talk about about it with their other friends. Whereas I feel a hard pay. Well, sometimes it stunts that virality,
but that's uh that's a price to pay for for having other advantages.
Yeah, it's a it's a trade-off, but it's the way you explain it, it makes sense because again, small team, do you want to be bothered thinking about, okay, this is the cohort that, you know, only like this part of pay wall and what games do we give them? And, you know, it

just complicates things. I mean you could someday maybe rethink it but you know a hard pay wall has helped you helped you focus especially as you said first 24 hours that's that's it that's the moment of truth.
Yeah and I I think it's a discussion that should be ongoing. I think some apps are better starting as a soft pay and then shifting and and vice versa. And there's examples of that happening. So it just it depends a lot on the environment you're in and and like where you are as a company. If you have like 20 developers, then it's a lot easier to to find like those areas of improvement that are going to shift 2%, but if you're making a ton of money, 2% is huge, right? So, like
it's Yeah. And also if you're first in a category
um and you're viral for the get-go because you're the only one ranking on a keyword like some of those AI apps that you see popping up like if you're the first arrival
having a low threshold can help because then you're most likely going to get more people in. So yeah it's a it's a

strategic decision that should be that should evolve. So, one of the things I I would like to touch on, Felix, is is the P the pop brand, you know, in terms of where it's going, how you protect it, and within all of the the disconnect that we discussed about parents and kids and and the the creative approach that you're taking to marketing, what are the guidelines and and the growth that you mentioned, you know, reviewing things. How is POPPPO evolving and where do you see it going in the next, say, five years? So from the get-go, the idea with PockPock is that the app was going to be one of many products and like part of a wider brand. The idea is really to establish a really trusted digital play environment for parents, [clears throat] something that like they can trust and know that it's not going to be addictive, not going to be overstimulating, it's not going to be sneaky. So pock the app was kind of the

first step in that and I think you executed pretty well like winning those accolades and still like want to grow it a lot bigger. So for that there's a lot of design decisions that go into it. For instance the the no ads thing or even having a hard payw wall so there's no payw walls that kids are going to see. That's something that's very dear to us. And also like having no winning or losing having like no coin system. These are all to make it a little bit more calm and less tantrum causing. So this is kind of our ethos. And the idea with the brand is
to push that on other avenues. Like we just started a YouTube channel and that's the same ideas on YouTube. Talking to a lot of parents. I'm not a parent yet, but
a lot of parents when they talk about YouTube kids, you don't see a lot of like enthusiasm about it. They're like, "It works, like it captured attention, but they
they don't necessarily love what's on there or trust what's on there." Um, so

the idea was to create a channel that is like easy to trust. It's like a bit slower pace. It's it's educational. So, uh, we're we're seeing good early traction on that. Um, and then we have uh our social media that we've been um growing. These are a lot more parent oriented. So like kind of talking about um relationship to screen time. Uh how do we deal about it? How how do we al alleviate some of the guilt maybe that's around it? Like is it justified that there's a lot of stuff out there that is just like screen time is terrible all the time for everyone no matter the situation. And that's not true. And um so we're just trying to dig into those ideas, create a brand that basically like parents of toddlers, parents of young kids can trust, can love. Um so we're exploring these different avenues and um keep making our product better basically. So this is yeah, this is kind of the strategy creating really great

products and great experiences that parents can trust. absolutely love what you're doing with this, Felix, because it is needed and and the whole thing makes sense. I can see why parents are signing up and people are throwing awards at you. So, Felix, we could carry on talking about this all day. It's a matter of huge interest to me as a as a parent. Um, but before the Labrador actually starts trying to rip my arm off to go out for a walk, we need to draw things to a close. Um, and there are two questions that all of our guests get asked. First of all, what are you playing right now? What's on your phone? What are you spending time with when you should be, you know, using AI to churn out all of these fantastic creatives? Second of all, favorite game of all time.
The game I'm playing right now is Skyrim. So, a bit of a a throwback on my Steam Deck that I just got. So, I I had never played it when it was released, so really enjoying it.
Oh, yeah. Fabulous. And uh my favorite

game of all time, I would have to say Balders's Gate 2.
Mhm.
Okay. Actually, there
Oh, yes. Very much so. It's you're not going to get any push back on those those choices.
Um
that's fantastic. Well,
Felix, it's been an absolute joy. It's I love what you're doing with Pop Pock. Um it sounds like you guys have got a really strong model in there and are really kind of focusing on on both of your audiences. So uh thank you very much indeed for
opening the lid for us
and thanks for the practical tips that I hope people will think about you know small teams with big results and check in as you build your brand again Felix as you continue we'll have you back because it's going to be a great story how again a small team big results massive brand who wouldn't want to hear about that
thank you for having me uh it was it was great to talk about like ads and

creative deeper. I I think that's always fun to go into the details. So, uh yeah, thank you for [music] this show is all about how to do your job better, how to make an amazing game, how to market it, and you have a say. So, if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on, then we would love to hear from you.
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