Gamification for graduate recruitment

Deutsche Bank

A brainy campaign in search for top talent.

Deutsche Bank is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank employs more than 100,000 people in 74 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets. Deutsche Bank’s Employer Brand and Marketing Department tasked Firedog to create a graduate recruitment campaign to target students on campus around the UK. Our remit extended to game concept, digital interface design, asp and flash game build, communications and event materials.

The game was launched at a series of open days around the UK's top universities.
The game was launched at a series of open days around the UK's top universities.

Firedog was briefed to create an engaging vehicle to create ongoing dialogue and a relationship with students at key university campuses around the world.

Even though a great number of students apply every year to be placed as a graduate within Deutsche Bank, the problem facing the business was how to target specifically the ‘cream of the crop’. Firedog was briefed to create an engaging vehicle to create ongoing dialogue and a relationship with students at key university campuses around the world. After researching current trends in business and generation Y, Firedog created the concept of the Carbon Credit Challenge, formulating the overarching strategy, messaging and design and build of an online game and supporting marketing campaign.

We developed the concept, heavily researching carbon finance together with Deutsche Bank’s Carbon trading desk.

The primary objective was to develop a game that students would play in order to stand a chance win a prize. We developed the concept, heavily researching carbon finance together with Deutsche Bank’s Carbon trading desk. Once the initial design concept had been developed, we began with content planning, wireframes and game modelling. We delivered all design, bespoke campaign imagery plus full copy and messaging for both the game and supporting marketing campaign. Firedog created an administrative area which provided fingertip control to the Deutsche Bank team, giving instant access to game and user statistics. It was then very simple for the team to track user activity and target their communications accordingly.

The game environment has been designed to mimic a trading desk, yet has a contemporary and progressive feel.
The game environment has been designed to mimic a trading desk, yet has a contemporary and progressive feel.

The game was rolled out for two years running in the UK and was then adopted for the Asia Pacific and American regions.

Deutsche Bank has considerable green credentials and the Carbon Credit Challenge helps communicate this to a ethical student audience. The game also benefits students, who receive the opportunity to understand how the global carbon trading system actually works, whilst encouraging the most competitive and highly driven students to take part. We built the game using .NET and Flash technologies. The product was so successful it was rolled out nationally in the United Kingdom for two years running and also internationally in the Asia-Pacific and American regions.

The game contained an active leaderboard so that players could feel competitive and track their progress.
The game contained an active leaderboard so that players could feel competitive and track their progress.