K MANGA: Campaign Turnaround Strategy
Turnaround design strategy for an underperforming global ad campaign.
Overview
K MANGA launched into the US market as Kodansha's official digital platform, but early ad performance missed baseline performance metrics.
I led the creative turnaround strategy, re-aligning visual assets, messaging, and ad formats to drive immediate user acquisition and campaign profitability
Outcome
10 New ads
Drove high-value user conversion across key titles.
+10% ROI
Achieved measurable ROI increase post-turnaround.
Increase Efficiency
Accelerated creative production and iteration speed.
Cleared Restriction
Retained campaign scope and extended partnership.
An urgent situation requires our immediate attention: a high-performing, long-running ad campaign was recently flagged following an update to the platform’s community guidelines regarding product misuse. To prevent immediate and permanent account suspension, we must audit and update our creative assets without delay. The critical priority is to review a flagged ad, identify the non-compliant visual elements, and adjust the artwork to ensure full compliance while preserving campaign performance.
The Challenge
I initiated a comprehensive product analysis to identify high-performing player hooks and refine campaign angles. By auditing artwork, typography, and narrative elements, I structured a unified creative framework designed for rapid testing and optimization.
Focus Areas for Strategy:
Align creative direction directly with executive leadership
Establish deep alignment on official brand language and tone
Prioritize high-impact key art assets
Optimize production workflows for rapid creative iteration
Strategy
Problematic Banners Example
Scenes that thought to be problematic
Sexuality
Blushing
Kiss Scene
Facing a tight deadline, we prioritized resolving policy issues for ads already in circulation. For obvious compliance violations, we drew inspiration from Japanese anime censorship techniques, evaluating stylized cover-ups and targeted visual modifications—a strategy that also resolved flags on intimate scenes like kissing. For strong language, we redacted the words while leaving the initial letters visible, which sparked viewer curiosity and made the titles more engaging. Romantic themes proved the trickiest to diagnose since they lacked explicit policy breaches. However, after analyzing hundreds of ad variations, we traced the flags to subtle facial blushing. Removing all steam, blush, and romantic visual cues fully resolved the issue.
Execution
Original
Edited
Rapid Compliance & System Stability
Exceeded baseline performance metrics within the first week of deploying revised creative formats.
Secured contract extension by demonstrating immediate ROI growth and scalable ad production workflows.
Achieved a +17% increase in ROI across paid campaign channels.
Results
