Increase brand recognition with an 'edutainment' app

UBS's edutainment app 'Quiz and Fly' was able to deliver almost 1 million messages to 15,000 app users.

An ‘edutainment’ app is not a common communication channel. What inspired you to use it to increase UBS’s brand recognition?

Research has shown that almost 25% of the world population and 50% of the US population play social or mobile games (e.g. Roland & Berger, 2012). In addition, mobile games are popular across all age groups and game elements inspire friendly competition among users. This encouraged UBS to explore mobile games for communication and interaction with a broad audience. Launching a game app helped position UBS as an innovative, mobile and digital brand, as well as embed and convey key brand messages as part of the game.

How did you communicate internally to get your colleagues on board with the app’s creation?

We launched a communication plan that incorporated two levels - to gain management endorsement and employee buy-in. To get the management endorsement, an advisory board was set up consisting of management team members from the relevant business units (e.g. internal, external communication and branding). The project team consistently kept the advisor board informed about the project's progress and the upcoming activities. In order to secure peer level buy-in, an intranet article was posted to invite employees in Switzerland to participate as testers early in the app development stage.

Although we only required 500 volunteers, we received over 1000 registrations within a few days. Due to this significant interest, we created a community on our internal social media platform and engaged with volunteers by offering first-hand information, competitions and the exclusive opportunity to test the game prior to the launch. Based on the crowdsourced feedback and contributions from this community (e.g. user generated questions), the app design was refined to meet the interests of users.

When searching for the right partner to design the app, what were your criteria?

UBS defined the overall communication and branding goals of the app and then evaluated game developer proposals against those goals. This allowed the developers the creative freedom to develop their own ideas, which we further refined in collaborative workshops. The final selection was based on how creative the ideas were, alignment with the goals we set and of course, concrete figures like cost and timeline.

There is always the risk of negative sentiment: what were your strategies to avoid this?

Although the game was based on an ‘edutainment’ concept, which is relatively low risk because it doesn't include provocative elements (e.g. violence or in-game transactions), we made sure the concept was rigorously tested internally before the official launch. The functionalities were tested by employees and their overall feedback was positive. This made us confident that the game would be well accepted. Nevertheless, negative constructive feedback was viewed as valuable input to further improve the game. As such, we set up feedback channels across various contact points (e.g. app homepage and within the app) and responded to all constructive feedback. Users were able to see their feedback implemented as improvements during the first app update last year.

How did you promote the app, and what was most effective at securing downloads?

We focused on existing touch points (e.g. client and employee magazine) and social media advertising. We also launched a competition during the activation campaign. Users that achieved a certain score were eligible to participate and win a real trip to a location of their choice. The competition and its related communication proved to be effective in securing downloads, as well as increasing the amount of interactions we had with each user. We also tested a variety of visual concepts for the social media advertising and finally used images that portrayed various people challenging users to beat their high score. To increase the campaign performance, social media advertising was focused on users accessing the channels via mobile devices.

How did you measure the app’s impact and what were the results?

Success was measured based on two indicators. In order to establish the communication channel, users needed to install the app. Therefore, the number of downloads was used as an indicator for the potential reach. Also, as UBS could only convey messages in the quiz when users played the game, the number of questions answered was used as an indicator for the number of conveyed messages. From October 2014 to February 2015, UBS was able to send out almost 1 million messages to 15,000 app users. As an additional evidence of its success, the app achieved a 4/5 star rating in the app store.

Any final tips on using a game app as an effective communication channel?

Based on our experience, the quiz was a good tool to convey a broad range of business related messages. However, direct communication of brand message through the game story would also be a viable option. I would also stress that in addition to a strong concept for the game app, an effective activation campaign is definitely required to achieve success.

 

Matthias is one of three shortlised candidates for The Young Communicators Award 2015 - an award organised by the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD). It honours individuals whose work shapes the future of the communication profession. To find our more about the Awards, click here.

Image credits: UBS AG

Matthias Rem

Matthias is a young professional, experienced in social media, community and channel management with a Master of Science in Business Administration. Currently he works as a digital strategist at UBS AG. Matthias is also one of three shortlised candidates for the Young Communicators Award 2015