Title	BATTLE OF BRAINS
Brand	EVONIK INDUSTRIES
Product/Service	IMAGE, EMPLOYER BRANDING
Category	B07. Use of Competitions & Promotional Games
Entrant	OMD Hamburg, GERMANY
Idea Creation	OMD Hamburg, GERMANY
Media Placement	OMD Hamburg, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Caren Freimuth	OMD Hamburg	Deputy Director Client Service
Jan Schüttler	OMD Hamburg	Director Client Service
Anika Rühmann	OMD Hamburg	Executive Client Service
Sandra Hohenstein	OMG Fuse	Group Manager Brand Experience
Marvin Meyer	OMG Fuse	Manager Brand Experience

The Campaign

We turned the “Battle for Brains” into the “Battle of Brains”. Our core idea: an arcade-inspired quiz to make employer branding playful and fun. Most companies emphasize innovation in their employer branding campaigns. But only few actually prove it, leading to skepticism among our elusive audience. That’s why we wanted to create an engaging and rewarding personal experience that would really bring to life the innovative spirit of Evonik Industries. And what is more engaging than a chance to “humblebrag” about mad skills? We designed a complex quiz for students to compete against each other in three knowledge areas and learn about Evonik along the way. But we didn’t want it to be just a digital gimmick. Inspired by conventional vending machines, we upcycled one of them, turning it into a gaming machine that hosted the quiz and became a gathering point for students to connect with others and Evonik.

Campaign Success

The “Battle of Brains” machine was built from an original Wurlitzer snack machine, dissembled and equipped with new software and hardware, including a 4k screen and an illuminated display made of Evonik’s Plexiglas™. Academics from various areas designed the questionnaire with more than 1,500 questions about technology, science and economics. Mastering all questions on time required equal adeptness in all fields. Then the machine went on tour, visiting selected universities across Germany. A combination of social media, outdoor and student magazines was used to announce its arrival on campus. On two tablets used as controllers, students competed against each other for highly coveted prizes like Beats headphones. A landing page with real-time leaderboards enabled contestants to follow the scores and to compete with students from other universities. The 10 best of the best would score an extra prize: an exclusive invite to the Evonik Student Network Day.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The “Battle of Brains” sparked excitement and turned the first meeting with an innovative B2B brand into an entertaining experience. More than 1,500 students took the challenge and participated in the “Battle of Brains” – over 10,000 supported the players on the ground. The campaign successfully pushed our audience’s perception of Evonik as an innovative employer by 5% and increased their interest in the company as potential future employer by a staggering 15%. Compared to a classic employer branding print campaign the “Battle of Brains” had a 270% higher impact on people’s perception! Beyond these significant image effects for the brand, Evonik got access to a database of 850 personal contacts, open and ready to talk about career opportunities at a company that has proven to be one of the most innovative and creative companies in Germany, constantly seeking high potentials hungry for challenge and thinking outside the box: Evonik.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

We designed an interactive, arcade-inspired employer branding tool that successfully established Evonik as an innovative employer amongst students of top universities in Germany. The cleverly customized “Battle of Brains” quiz machine truly brought to life the innovative spirit of Evonik Industries in a more engaging way than any traditional campaign could ever achieve, leading to a significant increase in interest in Evonik as future employer. We might have reached less people than with a national campaign. But we surely made a greater difference.

Specifically targeting top students from the areas of business, technology and science, we decided to approach them directly where they lay the foundation of their future career: on campus. Even though universities nowadays have become battlegrounds for companies to attract the attention of future employees, our real competition were not the other brands but all the fun stuff that students engage with during their spare time on campus -- hanging out with friends, playing mobile games and whatnot. So in order to capture their interest, we tapped into one of the target audience’s main cultural passion points – gaming – and addressed their innate sense of competitiveness. Instead of talking about the brand we distinctly shifted the focus towards creating a lasting experience for the audience.