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SEGA has cut digital advertising production time by two-thirds after rolling out Bannerflow's creative automation across seven international markets. Its Social Dynamic Ads also lowered media costs compared with standard adverts.
A comparable campaign that previously required about three weeks of work from a full-time designer can now be produced in about one week. The change also removed the need to outsource production work to external agencies.
SEGA introduced the system to support creative and marketing teams across the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia. Previously, the company adapted large volumes of advertising for different languages, currencies, age ratings, formats and sizes through a largely manual process.
The move reflects a broader push by advertisers to automate repetitive production work while tailoring campaigns more closely to local markets. For gaming publishers, that challenge is often greater because titles must be promoted across multiple territories and storefronts while keeping branding consistent.
SEGA said its Social Dynamic Ads reduced CPM by 44% and CPC by 14% compared with standard ads. It used the format as part of a direct-response strategy aimed at making campaign spending more measurable and more closely tied to performance.
Attribution remains difficult in the video games sector because consumers can buy titles through a wide range of physical and digital outlets. That can make it harder for marketers to connect an advert directly to a sale, particularly when campaigns run across several platforms and countries at the same time.
To address that, the ads were set up to display local currencies, age ratings and product features dynamically. This reduced the amount of manual versioning needed for each market while keeping a consistent look across campaigns.
Another change has come in the production of animated banner advertising. The platform allowed internal teams to build animated formats in-house, reducing reliance on static adverts and external support.
Those formats are now used in major pre-launch and post-launch marketing campaigns around the world. The work sits at the centre of efforts by game publishers to keep campaigns flexible as release schedules, product messaging and local market needs change.
Matt Whittles, Head of Paid Media at SEGA, outlined the reasoning behind the approach.
"Personalisation is the future of advertising, but delivering it at scale across different markets and audiences is one of the biggest hurdles for global brands. Social Dynamic Ads are helping us bridge that gap. By reducing the time and cost involved in producing localised creative, we can test and learn faster, make our advertising more relevant and have a more meaningful conversation with audiences in each market," Whittles said.
Bannerflow, based in Stockholm, sells software that allows marketing teams to design, publish and analyse digital advertising in-house. Its platform supports a range of formats, including display, social, video, mobile, digital out-of-home, customer relationship marketing and onsite advertising.
Its system connects studios, creative teams and media partners in a single workflow. That structure is designed to reduce the manual production involved in adapting adverts across different channels and markets.
Luke Dash, Chief Executive Officer at Bannerflow, said the SEGA project showed how automation could reshape campaign production.
"Great creative should be shaped by the idea, not constrained by file sizes, formats or the effort involved in producing hundreds of variants. Our role is to give businesses such as SEGA the freedom to focus on creativity while automation handles the technical complexity of scaling and localising campaigns. By connecting studios, creative teams and media partners in one workflow, creative automation can streamline production and turn performance learnings into stronger future campaigns," Dash said.