Brawl Stars | Unleashing Mina
Overview
Mobile games juggernaut, Supercell drops new characters for the global hit Brawl Stars so often it’s hard to keep up. But the launch of their newest Brawler, Mina – inspired by Brazilian culture – offered a unique opportunity to bring some local flavor to the masses. And it didn’t hurt that the team at Rise NY & Partners is loaded with Brazilians with boots on the ground in São Paulo.
Role: Creative Lead
What I Did
Creative Direction
Client Management
Why It Mattered
With so many moving pieces involved, a tight timeline, and an extremely loyal audience, there was no room for error. It came down to the wire, but the result was over 10 million views in one week. And the introduction of Brawl Stars’ first culturally inspired brawler.
Approach
One of the keys to this project was to balance entertaining storytelling with cultural authenticity. With a mix of animation, vfx, and live action featuring Brazilian Skateboard champ, Rayssa Leal on set with the Supercell crew, we had plenty to work with and needed to be careful to weave elements such as Brazilian funk and instrumentation, graffiti, and language into the piece in a way that felt natural. Supercell’s signature style is more sitcom than advertisement so editing and sound design for the live action scenes were crucial. Supplementing our team with local artists and music studios made for a film that successfully introduced Mina (and Rayssa) to a global audience while giving the massive Brazilian gaming audience a character they could claim as their own.