Domino

The hidden problem behind five pre-rolls.

On the surface the brief was clear: produce five short scripts for dessert-drink pre-rolls, based on five character-led packs. But the real question was how to turn anime characters, the taste of a dessert drink, and the audience's everyday experience into a single short, watchable, shareable moment.

The core challenge wasn't the number of videos — it was the relationship between three different worlds: the world of the product, the world of the anime, and the world of the audience. Focus only on the character and the dessert disappears; introduce only the product and the emotional pull of the characters is lost. So we reframed the problem: build a moment in which the dessert genuinely enters the character's world and the audience's life.

From studying the anime to listening to the audience.

First we reviewed the most-watched and best-loved scenes tied to each anime — not to bolt the product onto a famous moment, but to understand the behaviour, situation, or energy each character is remembered for.

But understanding the characters wasn't enough without hearing the audience. We ran two brainstorming and group-conversation sessions with fans to grasp their mental image, how they engage with the characters, their media habits, and their preferences at the moment of choosing and sharing content. Before writing a single script, Donoghteh set out to hear the audience's language.

What the field showed us.

• You don't win an anime fan with a picture of the character — you convince them with the character behaving true to form.
• A video has to open with an event, not an ad; something must happen in the first three seconds.
• Humour has to grow out of the character and the real experience of using the product: one dessert, one familiar moment, five character reactions.
• The pack turns from a product into a language between friends; the character earns the glance, and taste and experience carry the purchase.

From insight to a creative core.

The creative path rested on one central rule: in a short moment from the character's life or world, the Domino dessert enters the story and activates that character's defining trait. In this architecture the dessert doesn't just appear at the end — the dessert is the reason the moment happens.

That rule did several things at once: it kept the product at the centre of the event, made the five videos one family, preserved the differences between characters, drew the humour from character and eating experience, and left room to extend the idea across digital, point of sale, and BTL.