Digital & Arts Media BDP Student Vanessa Vazquez Esquivel created an immersive ad experience on Roblox for Khan Academy, called Khan Campus, where users could play four mini-games and earn points.
"Being able to virtually explore a world I built and see others interact with and comment on it made the entire process worth every single hour I spent in front of my computer screen!”
How would you describe this creative project and how did you come up with the idea?
My initial idea was to redesign assets for struggling brands. However, during my first meeting with my mentor, I learned about Roblox's new portal ads feature and was recommended to take a more interactive approach to my project, which reminded me of the immersive experiences we'd explored in my New Media & Emerging Entertainment course. Though I'd crafted a transmedia campaign for that course, I hadn't actually seen any of my ideas come to life. It was then that I fully fleshed out the idea to create the experience portion of a Roblox portal ad for a struggling brand.
I created an immersive ad experience on Roblox for a brand with a marketing problem. The project unfolded in three phases: research, planning, and creation. I first identified three brands with unique marketing issues, ultimately choosing Khan Academy due to its alignment with Roblox’s core audience and its lack of advertising. I then planned to my campaign, resulting in a pitch deck, a game design document, and a handful of rough sketches. Lastly, I got to work building my ad experience on Roblox Studio. After a month, a vertical slice demo of my experience-- titled Khan Campus—was complete.
The experience consisted of a school campus where users could walk around and play four mini-games: a math maze, an underwater coding lab, a trivia contest, and a functional science-themed obstacle course. By playing the mini-games, users could earn points for the campus leaderboard, buy virtual merch, or discounts for Khan Academy’s latest AI tool: Khanmigo.
What was the most rewarding aspect of your Connecting Experience?
The most rewarding aspect of my Connecting Experience was getting to walk around my Roblox world and presenting it at the poster session. Before this, I had only created mock videos and never brought any of my marketing campaign ideas to life, let alone created a virtual experience. Being able to virtually explore a world I built and to see others interact with and comment on it made the entire process worth every single hour I spent in front of my computer screen!
In what ways has this Connecting Experience shaped your plans for the future?
This Connecting Experience made me feel much more confident in my abilities as a marketer, helping me understand immersive experiences and the campaign pipelines better. While I already knew I wanted to work in creative marketing, this experience clarified what I enjoy most about the field: research and campaign planning/strategy. I now feel more well-rounded as I understand the next steps in developing ads, as well as their feasibility. With the new skills I've learned and practiced, I can contribute to more teams, such as production and creative, in my future roles.
Discuss the relationship that you had with your faculty mentor, and how they helped you during this Connecting Experience.
My faculty mentor, Erin Reilly, was crucial to the success of my Connecting Experience! She helped me come up with the idea and provided feedback and suggestions at each phase of my project. She always pushed me to try new ideas beyond what I had planned and was a great resource during the game design and creation portions, as she also leads the Texas Immersive Lab. I am very grateful to have had her guidance throughout this incredible journey.