Novocortex engaged 1.800 bankers in an online game

Novocortex was hired by the Dutch Rabobank to launch its new product proposition - Financial Logistics - to 240 affiliated banks (local bank offices). The main challenge was to win attention of bank employees who receive hundreds of e-mails and just don't have time to read lengthy newsletters (and who does?).

We decided to launch Financial Logistics with the help of a casual game (i.e. a simple online game that can be played in 2-5 minutes). We wanted to take bankers by surprise and let them play with product information. In other words, we didn't want to interrupt, we wanted to interact. Just as new rules of Advertising 2.0, Banking 2.0 and Buzz 2.0 prescribe:-)

Our campaign started with teasers on the intranet, telling "It's 31ºC in Egypt!" and "Solve the mystery of pyramids on October, 16". The pyramid is a symbol of the Financial Logistics proposition, with transaction services at the bottom and risk advisory at the top. On the 16th of October, 850 bank employees got an e-mail with "It's 31ºC in Egypt!" in the subject field, and a hyperlink to the FL game. They could win a trip to Egypt, the origin of all pyramids. We were not sure whether bankers would play a game. But within an hour, the FL game was played 459 times.

In total, the game was played 3.635 times within 2,5 weeks by about 1.800 employees. The response rate of our e-mail was 213% - 1.817 players devided by 850 e-mails. The FL game achieved an unexpected viral effect - people liked the game and invited their colleagues to play. The highest number of registered game attempts by one player was 32. And the winning score was 29 seconds. That's extremely fast, try to finish the game within one minute.

The best rewards for us were e-mails of the players: "It took me half an hour but I managed to finish the game within 60 seconds!", "You introduced a new addiction", "My colleague was happy that he could play the game at the office and at home, but he couldn't beat my score of 58 seconds!"

Read how we engaged marketers in co-creation of the advertising campaign for 24h Translations.

Read how user generated advertising helped Rabobank to sell 1.000 Rabo PinBoxes within 5 months.