This fake notification is a “personal attack”

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And now for today's issue...

The ad we’re studying today is an interesting “warning message” promoting Xbox’s PC Game Pass.

PC Game Pass is a subscription service offering unlimited access to a library of PC games that you can download at will.

This ad is on Reddit, so instead of fancy graphics, they’ve made the ad creative look like a native post that a real user could have made.

Why it works

The point isn’t necessarily to fool people into thinking that this is UGC – the last line makes it obvious that this isn’t a real notification, just something mocked up for the ad. But it does stop users from having “ad blindness” and skipping right past it without looking.

This format also does a great job of highlighting one of the main benefits of Game Pass – saving on space – without having to state it as explicit ad copy.

It’s easy to imagine how this ad might be ignored within a fraction of a second if it used more typical ad copy as the title, like “Save space with Xbox’s PC Game Pass now!”

How to apply this concept

If you’re promoting some kind of digital product or service, try to think backwards from the “error” state someone might encounter when NOT using your product – what’s the equivalent of a Low Disk Space notification for your target market?

For example, imagine mocking up a “No matches found” notification for a dating app.

Even if you’re not selling something digital, you can still think in terms of failure states without an actual notification:

Say you’re promoting a meal delivery service. The natural instinct might be to show images of the food, trying to make it look as appetizing as possible. But it might be worth starting with an image of an empty fridge instead.

And that's all for today's ad. But if you want some more inspiration, make sure to study today's sponsor:

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