THE PROBLEM

What we needed to solve for this project was coming up with shareable content featuring professional Magic players that could be done with few resources. Potentially, we could do player interviews, but we wouldn’t have access to them locally since our pro players are scattered throughout the globe.

INSPIRATION

I had recently seen some ads where it was noticeable that the limitations in resources or format were embraced and used as a “feature” of these ads (One such ad was by Spotify, where their Instagram ad featured a 60 second concert). In addition to this concept, I knew that the other content created around our players was mostly trying to mimic other sport coverage programs, and very deep into the technicalities of the game. I knew that while that content was good at covering magic involvement, it was not creating a connection to the players as people. Here I turned to another source of inspiration: Nike. They have great Instagram content featuring women in sports. They capture emotional parts of their training and private lives, which lets the viewer become emotionally invested in their struggle. That was the kind of thing we were missing; content that made the players relate-able in a personal level, as opposed to only focusing on their Magic careers.

THE CONCEPT

We could only have access to the players via phone interviews. I pointed out it would be a great idea to embrace the low res circumstances that we were restricted by, and use them to our advantage in a very DIY execution. We also discussed that the nature of the questions should also be in line with the concept of having a casual conversation on the phone with a friend. Our copywriter suggested we stick to a short interview, similar to the 60 second concert. We kicked around a few title options, but the most appropriate, and luckily, Magic related option, came from one of our designers (who also designed the logo for the intro).

The first video we launched was a big success and soon after, our Esports team requested a series of them to be released during key points of their season.