Title	IKANO FLAPPY SAVER
Brand	IKANO BANK
Product/Service	SAVINGS PRODUCTS
Category	A08. ORIGINAL GAME OR USE OF GAMING
Entrant Company	VOLONTAIRE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Contributing Company	VOLONTAIRE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Media Agency	MEDIACOM Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production Company	23 CRITTERS Stockholm, SWEDEN

The Campaign

Branded Entertainment is rather common in today’s Sweden. With critically-acclaimed global content-marketing campaigns coming out of Sweden, such as Absolut Vodka’s long history of artistic collaborations and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Jean-Claude van Damme’ s co-operation with Volvo, the bar i set quite high when it comes to Branded Entertainment. Historically, Swede’s have a proven track record of an unusually outspoken and vast international taste in popular culture and Sweden is often used as a test market for products and content. Unlike other European countries, Swedes are rarely exposed to audio dubbed content and have access to one of the world’s most developed and high speed Internet networks. High penetration and widespread use leads to a tech savy population with a natural relationship with most devices and platforms. Modern Sweden has developed a proud tradition of exporting not only goods, but movie stars, authors, producers, directors, songwriters, artists and musicians. These factors combined makes for one of the world’s most competitive markets for corporations looking to succeed in getting a piece of Branded Entertainment to become mass-market. Especially so if the message comes from a bank - pretty much the opposite of what the target audience is interested in.

Results

Young Swede’s confidence and interest in banks are low. Consumption has become a fast lane to forming their identity and the lack of savings leads to dependency upon others; inability to move away from home and a higher risk for accepting poor working conditions. This situation is largely attributed to the fact that young Swedes tend to avoid any economy related information. Ikano was founded by Ingvar Kamprad, who also fathered global furniture company IKEA. This gave us the possibility to take on a truly different approach. Our goal was to raise awareness of and position the bank in earned media as a “no need to get dressed up bank” for the many. Success relied on being perceived as less conservative and educational than others. Concrete goals were to reach half of Swedens youth age 18-29 (approximately 700 000 people), creating a PR value of at least 2 MSEK and 500 000 played games. Just before the Swedish tax return period, when rumors of a new release of the immensely popular mobile game Flappy Bird surfaced, we launched Ikano Flappy Saver, an homage to the original. Just like in real life, players were challenged to avoid saving obstacles like restaurants and shoe stores. A pre-launch together with Sweden’s largest gaming community resulted in a word-of-mouth effect from individual players and their followers. The extremely difficult game (available for iPhone and Android and as a web browser game) made the incentive to share personal high scores in social media big and nurtured organic spread. The prize – 100 000 SEK in a savings account worked as a motivator for continuous engagement. By becoming a part of young people’s interests and behavior (smart phones and gaming) we succeeded in making them engage in economy and aware of savings on their terms.

With a small budget success relied on earned attention. Just before the tax return period, rumors of a new release of Flappy Bird surfaced. During 48 hours, we pre-launched Flappy Saver together with Sweden’s largest gaming community. With a prize of 10 000 SEK this created a word-of-mouth effect from players and their followers. The extremely difficult game (available for iPhone, Android and as a web browser game) made the incentive to share personal high scores in social media big and nurtured organic spread. The prize – 100 000 SEK in a savings account worked as a motivator for continuous engagement.

By paying attention to zeitgeist, daring to be different and becoming a part of young people’s interests and behavior we succeeded in making young people get engaged in economy. In just 4 weeks the game was played over 1,5 million times and the young crowd voluntarily spent over 154 days with a bank product. With a total media buy of only €59,374 (on mobile and Facebook ads) the campaign reached over 116 million people worldwide whilst nationally exceeding the whole youth population. The bank also received recognition amongst both mainstream, gaming and acclaimed business media worth an estimate of 32 MSEK (3,5 million euros) in 21 countries. The company was described as innovative and laid back bank, with Bloomberg dubbing Ikano ”Banking IKEA style”. To top that off the game has been played over 200 000 times after the end of the campaign and the interaction with Ikano Bank lasts until today. This proves that the campaign did not only reach a large audience, but also created a deep connection within a target audience that fundamentally dislikes anything related to banks.