Barclays has introduced 56 Sage Street, a free, online, single-player money-management game built around an interactive virtual city. The big, Flash-based game is intended to help the European banking giant reach younger consumers.

Game Design

When 56 Sage Street begins you have just arrived in the city, with only £4 in your pocket. You make money by taking various jobs, but you have to start out with lowly positions like dish washer and pizza deliveries. You can’t get any of the really good jobs until you improve your appearance and reputation, which takes nicer clothes and a fancier apartment, which, of course takes more money. Therein lies the challenge.

The game is named after the address of the fictional Mr. C., an ailing millionaire who lives at 56 Sage Street within the make-believe city. If you complete all the tasks in the game, Mr. C promises to bequeath his empire to you.

The game board is a sizable, scrolling, left-to-right three-dimensional map that you explore with your character. You start out in the poorest part of town and advance your way through a total of four “levels” as you accrue more and more money, ultimately ending up in the swanky subdivision called Silvergate. In total, there are some 100+ interactive nodes in the game, including hotels, restaurants, night clubs and various other businesses.

BARCLAYS – 56 SAGE STREET
A one-minute unnarrated video overview of the game

BARCLAYS – 56 SAGE STREET GAME PLAY
The dark, moody world, which feels somewhere between Sim City and a
Playstation game called “The Getaway,” will likely appeal to younger players.

BARCLAYS – 56 SAGE STREET GAME MAP
This map only shows 16 of the some 100+ interactive “hot-spots” one can explore.

One interesting aspect of 56 Sage Street’s game play is the game clock. Every day, you wake up at 8:00 a.m. The clock advances 15 minutes every time you visit one of the city’s interactive nodes, no matter what you do (or don’t do) at that location. Additional time is run off the clock for jobs you accept and tasks you complete. Every day ends at 11:30 p.m., at which point you must find a hotel, apartment or park bench and rest until 8:00 a.m. the next day. Your character recharges his or her energy and appearance at varying rates depending on the quality of the accommodations you choose (or what you can afford).

There are three arcade-style mini-games within the game. The mini-game in Tony’s Café tests your cooking skills on a short-order grill, the Jolly Roger mini-game tests your reflexes ala Guitar Hero, EWM Solicitors tests your typing skills, and the final secret challenge tests whether you’ve got what it takes to run Mr C’s empire when he is gone.

BARCLAYS – 56 SAGE STREET MINIGAMES

The mini-game in Tony’s Grill (top two images) is a mad race to keep up with the breakfast orders pouring in. The Jolly Roger mini-game replaces a keyboard for a guitar in a ‘Guitar Hero’ style game. And the EWS Solicitor mini-game is a dictation test.

There are 50 different awards you can earn as you play the game, an idea which feels remarkably similar to the kind of badges Foursquare users accrue.

The game includes a mobile phone interface that you can use to help you navigate the game and keep track of your money. If you need any help, there’s a guide for the phone, an overall game guide and FAQ.

Anyone registered on Facebook can save their game, and, if you feel like it, share your progress with a status update. There’s also a Twitter tie-in, but it’s relatively weak.

The game was designed by international ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in conjunction with B-Reel.

Game Play

56 Sage Street is not terribly challenging, but it is somewhat fun to play and has the potential to become addictive. Be advised though: If you make it to the end, prepare to be frustrated. If you complete all the tasks Mr. C assigns you, you’re told to go to his house because there’s something he wants to give you. Even though the house is clearly indicated on the game map, the interactive marker appears to be missing, so you can’t win the game.

As with all games, half the fun is figuring out how to beat “the system.” And in that regard, 56 Sage Street is no different. There are easy shortcuts one can use to accrue money faster than the game designers intended (e.g., playing the mini-games over and over, or repeatedly taking the overtime shift at the fireworks factory). Kids these days adopt the hacker’s mindset when playing video games, looking for any opportunities to “break the rules.” Much like Matthew Broderick’s character in the movie War Games, the challenge of deciphering the game’s design is what many players of 56 Sage Street will find most alluring. How can I “game the system?”

Ultimately the game has a lot more to do with budgeting and money management than it does with banking. Many of the lessons it teaches about how to use a retail financial institution don’t align with how things work in the real world. For instance, you cannot make deposits via your in-game, virtual mobile phone nor online at any of the game’s internet cafes. You can only make deposits in branches… but branches are only open from 9:30 to 5:30 p.m., so if the game clock says 9:15 and you’d like to make a deposit, tough luck: you can’t.

What’s worse is that you can only deposit £80 at a time, which is very frustrating when you have a £280 paycheck and £40 in daily automatic debit deductions. It takes “15 minutes” of game time with each visit you make to a branch, plus your energy takes a one-point blow every time you do so. So if you want to make a £800 deposit, you’ll have to make 10 stops at a branch, which takes 2.5 hours of “game time” and 10 “energy points.” The level of irritation this causes is probably a good representation of the vexing “rules” and aggravations consumers have come to expect when dealing with real financial institutions.

Analysis and Perspective

For all the talk in the financial industry about “engaging young consumers on their terms,” few banks and credit unions truly grasp what that really involves. “That means I need to be on Facebook, right?” For most organizations, their youth strategy is little more than lip service, but Barclays is stepping up — nay, stepping out on the ledge — to put its money where its mouth is. At the very least, Barclays deserves praise for its willingness to pioneer and innovate.

Financial institutions have been toying with online interactive games for nearly a decade, so in that sense, Barclay’s 56 Sage Street isn’t a new concept. In fact, Barclay’s rolled out another Flash-based game called Water Slides in 2009. What makes 56 Sage Street so remarkable is its size and scope; this free game is almost as good as some that cost money. But the game probably also cost at least £200,000 to develop, plus who knows how much more to promote.

Will Barclay’s yield the results necessary to justify this huge roll of the dice? Only time will tell. So far, the game has been “liked” by over 500 people on Facebook, but are these the young people Barclays is targeting? Or are they older video game fans and designers from around the world?

Overall, the Barclays brand isn’t very prominent in the game, something sure to please gaming purists as much as it aggravates branding consultants. There is a small, omnipresent logo at the bottom of the screen, but branches within the game’s cityscape are almost completely unbranded. Architectural cues, along with the bank’s signature blue, have been eschewed presumably to preserve the game’s integrity. Little icons of the Barclays crest denote branch and ATM locations. Other than that though, there is almost zero connection back to Barclays or its website. It’s a soft sell at best — perhaps a little too soft — but better for Barclays to err on the side of caution than risk a backlash. After all, if the game reeked of marketing, no one would play it.

There is one thing people of all ages will probably realize when playing 56 Sage Street: Life can be very repetitive. You get up, eat, exercise, go to work, eat, come home, eat again, then go to bed. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Adults will likely recognize the daily tedium for what it is and acclimate quickly. However, younger people, for whom the game is designed, might find the mundane repetitiveness boring…or worse, downright frightening. Despite the game’s limited value as a banking simulator, the game is a fairly accurate representation of the responsibilities most young people should expect as they enter adulthood.

One major aspect of the game isn’t immediately apparent. 56 Sage Street embeds a clear (if not unintentional) message about upward mobility. You’re expected to pursue a bigger, better, more expensive life. The lesson that may make some parents uneasy is that there is no such thing as “good enough.” Your clothes, your appearance, your reputation — indeed who you are as a person — is almost entirely defined by how much money and possessions you have. Happiness, it would seem, is tied directly to your wallet… and always seemingly one step beyond your reach.

A portfolio of 24 unique, unusual and noteworthy creative marketing initiatives from banks and credit unions around the world, including 19 visual illustrations and 13 videos. There are really a lot of interesting things packed into this article, and each of these projects probably warrant its own story here at The Financial Brand. Enjoy! (Note: RSS readers will need to view the article at the website in order to watch the videos.)

Activo Bank – “Simplifica”

You don’t have to speak Porteguese in order to find this spot promoting Activo bank’s branch hours funny.

ACTIVO BANK – SIMPLIFICA

Activo Bank – Flash Mob

Forty dancers “spontaneously” assemble, then perform an “impromptu” six-minute routine in the middle of a mall for Activo Bank. It’s fun, and the dancers do a good job engaging the audience, but it feels like a jazzercize class in a few spots.

ACTIVO BANK – FLASH MOB

Tesco Bank – Careers Microsite

In an economy this cruddy, you probably don’t need to go to these lengths to attract and recruit top talent. But you look really cool and classy when you do. Tip of the hat Chris Skinner at the Finanser for finding this site.

Unknown Asian Bank – Mobile Banking ATM Wrap

Now this is a fun, cool way to let people know you’re offering mobile banking.

Community America Credit Union – “Community Americans”

Here’s an interesting way to present a testimonial-style message. Members get on stage and talk about their lives while a collage of animated footage about their lives plays on the screen behind them. You can see also the spots from “Kent” and “Jen.” The acting is really good (one can assume they are paid actors).

ACTIVO BANK – COMMUNITY AMERICANS

Citizens Bank – Lawn Seed & Fertilizer

This has to be one of the more unusual “line extensions” for any brand in the history of the financial industry. Citizens owns the naming rights for the Philadelphia Phillies ballpark, who is retailing the lawn seed and fertilizer on behalf of the bank. Fertilizer? It sounds a little like buying a bag of poop from a bank.

Barclays – “Musical Pounds”

If you like Ricky Gervais, then you’ll probably like this spot too. It’s not Ricky, but it is random, offbeat British humor. Spoiler alert: a pile of cash gets up and performs a musical number on stage.

BARCLAYS – MUSICAL POUNDS

Arizona State Credit Union – “Broke”

“Broke. It’s the new poor.” Depressing, if not true. The credit union said they received very good results in attracting new student banking relationships. The ad’s offer? A free parking pass, something Paul Stull, EVP/Marketing at Arizona State Credit Union, describes as “pure gold” on college campuses. The ad is CUNA Diamond Winner.

Chase Bank – “Save”

“Save is the new spend.” The financial industry is coining new metaphors to define the tectonic economic “paradigm shift” almost as fast as the Treasury is minting new dollars.

Truliant Credit Union – “OMG”

Ryan Shell at Truliant made a pair of TV spots for his $1.3 billion credit union. The spots show that you don’t have to have a big budget to create visual interest. Computer graphics are used to animate and rotate the spots’ scripts. You can see the second spot here.

TRULIANT – OMG

Union First Market Bank – “In Love”

A Union First customer talks about her bank as if it were the greatest boyfriend she’s ever had. The actress blushes in a sofa as she delivers lines like, “It makes me feel cherished, like they want me,” and “This time, I’m in love.” It might evoke memories of those General Foods International Coffee ads (“Share the Moments of Your Life”) from yesteryear. If you’re one of those people who scoffs every time a financial marketer uses “love” and “bank” in the same sentence then get ready to roll your eyes. Another spot announcing the merger between Union and First Market banks is completely different — very retro, and much more credible. The campaign was coordinated by Boisseau Partners, which had previously been Union Bank & Trust’s marketing firm.

UNION FIRST MARKET BANK – IN LOVE

UNION FIRST MARKET BANK – MERGER ANNOUNCEMENT

IDB Bank – “Four Letter Word”

The banking industry’s rotten image is often fodder for financial marketers. Here’s another bank tapping into consumers’ anti-bank venom. They also marry bank hatred with “love” (there’s that word again), suggesting in the body copy that a financial love affair awaits: “Imagine a bank you’ll actually love — where truly personal service helps you and your company grow.” The URL: www.IDoBankingBetter.com. Agency: Barker DZP.

America First FCU – “Banker Confessional”

Bankers step into a sidewalk confessional booth to admit they prefer banking at America First FCU. You can see additional executions of the campaign in more TV spots here, here, here and here.

AMERICA FIRST FCU – BANKER CONFESSIONAL

Tech CU – “First Bank of Greed”

In this retro spot, a herd of cows replace bank customers and a sinister butcher plays the role of teller. “When you walk into your bank, do you feel like a piece of meat?” the announcer asks. The butcher (we’ll call him the “Teller of Seville”) sharpens his knife, sizing up the herd to see who he’ll slaughter first. It’s funny, but dark. Okay…it’s mostly funny.

TECH CU – FIRST BANK OF GREED

BECU – “Local People”

For the last 7-8 years, this multi-billion dollar credit union in Seattle has consistently celebrated local people and their unique personalities in its branding. The bus wrap shown below adds a whole new dimension to the campaign — literally. It’s a little hard to see in these photos, but the entire bus is wrapped in a mosaic of member-submitted photos. You can get a sense of how BECU typically uses a collage of people’s faces in the print ad.

BECU – “Move It Or Lose It”

BECU distances itself from banks on Wall Street in this 30-second spot. The call to action: “It’s your money. Move it or lose it…one nickel, dime or hidden fee at a time.” BECU works with a local photographer and a local television production company to feature real members in the credit union’s advertising. Their spots are filmed in various places throughout the Puget Sound region, and even the music we use in the spots was created and recorded by Northwest musicians.

BECU – MOVE IT OR LOSE IT

Co-operative Bank – “Good With Money”

A nine-minute video chronicling the bank’s “ethical banking” policies.

CO-OPERATIVE BANK – GOOD WITH MONEY

KeyPoint Credit Union – “Net Worth”

Raoust + Partners created this campaign emphasizing the value KeyPoint provides its members in the form of increased wealth and net worth. The approach uses a creative visual X/Y graph illustrates to suggest growth and an increasing bottom line.

Xceed Financial FCU – Direct Mail

McGraw Hill FCU – Brand Identity

A brand identity redesign.

Discovery FCU – Auto Loans Bus Wrap

Clever use of the medium.

Woodstone FCU – Bus Back

Not the first time The Financial Brand has seen this approach.

IBM Southeast Employees Credit Union – Movie Posters

MDG Advertising created this direct mail campaign that turns the credit union’s products and services into movie parodies. The agency will be turning each of these pieces into TV spots, starting with “Dream Car.”

IBM SOUTHEAST EMPLOYEES CREDIT UNION – MOVIE POSTERS

Cornerstone Community FCU – Brand Identity

Cornerstone rolled out a new logo, part of a marketing campaign to promote its four Niagara County branches. In addition to the green and white logo, the campaign includes a new tagline, “You rate better here.” The credit union said its new logo is meant to raise the bank’s profile in Western New York.

Survey Says… Brand image matters most for bank shoppers

Young Money: Insights into Gen-Y’s perspective on money and budgeting

Iconic Ironic: Ads from financial institutions prior to their bailouts

Free or fee? Can free checking survive?

First to Market: This tiny CU lets you scan and deposit checks with your iPhone

Forensic Marketing* Dissecting a gnarly disclosure from WaMu in this post mortem

Name Game: User-generated video contest to find new name of teen account

Branch Profitability: How one credit union tracks and calculates it

Branch Design: Looking at the evolution of financial retailing

Brand New: New logo for Union Bank (of Not-Just-California-Anymore)

Pedaling Loans: Another credit union offers bike loans

Netbanker: Prosper back in peer-to-peer lending game with full SEC approval

Game On: Do online interactive games make sense for banks?

Waterslide Extreme: Barclays creates iPhone game

To promote its new contactless payment technology, Barclaycard made a TV spot featuring a fantasy water slide. Conceived by creative agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty and shot in São Paulo, the TV spot features a man leaving work via a slide and passing various contactless payment sites on his way home.

According to a press release, the TV spot became an internet sensation on YouTube, with over 1.3 million views and a further 60,000 views for the ‘Making of…’ video.

For those who aren’t familiar, contactless cards allow people to make payments quickly and securely, saving shoppers the hassle of paying with cash or entering PIN codes into terminals. A secure sensor at the checkout counter senses an RFID chip on a contactless card, then immediately withdraws the purchase total.

The water slide metaphor works well as the campaign’s central creative device. It suggests using a new, potentially scary technology is actually fun and fast.

To extend the promotion, Barclaycard came up with a YouTube contest challenging people to make a water slide video of their own. The contest wrapped on April 5.

The winning video was a spoof of an 8-bit video game from the 80s. All of the artwork for 8-Bit Water Slide was built and animated in Flash, then printed and cut out and reanimated in real life.

The winning entry has been criticized as being an entertaining display of animation but not the wildly creative “water slide concept” called for in the contest.

The winner received a “once in a lifetime trip” around the world to the five coolest water slides ever built.

Key Takeaway: If you’re going to run a contest seeking User-Generated Content, this is a good way to go about it. Barclaycard set the strategy and established creative guidelines, not the contestants. You risk making a big mistake — one you might really regret — if you start handing over strategic decisions to the general public. Barclaycard gave people the basic framework, then asked people to take the idea and run with it. What Barclaycard didn’t do is ask folks to “submit creative ad ideas for a new contactless payment card.” The best brands are based on strategy and built very deliberately, not through a hodge-podge collection of various polls, drawings and contests.

Barclaycard’s campaign included a Flash-based game supporting the campaign.

This Flash-based game is a creative extension of the overall promotion. Unfortunately, the game itself is only so-so. There is a lone, solitary “level” that takes a little as 5 seconds to solve, giving the game almost zero replay value and greatly diminishing its viral quotient.

Earlier this year, The Financial Brand rated and reviewed other Flash-based games from financial institutions. Barclaycard’s Waterslide game would have got two stars out of five. The graphics and concept are good, but the game designers stopped too soon (or were cut short by budgetary constraints). There were unrealized opportunities to make the game much more cool, challenging and fun.

Here are recent stories of interest from around the web.
Click on the hotlinked headlines to read more.

Barclays boss: Banks must apologize

John Varley, the head of Barclays, says banks should apologize to customers to win back their trust. He said the banking industry was facing a “public relations crisis” and would not regain the trust of the public until it had said sorry for what went wrong. “We should share our portion of responsibility.”

How should financial institutions respond to bloggers?

William Azaroff, Vancity Credit Union’s Director of Online Banking & Engagement, explains in this 46-slide presentation. He answers questions like when, how and why you engage with bloggers who write about your financial institution. He offers good advice based on real experience that can benefit any financial institution, but especially the ones mentioned here and here.

Troubled economy shaping Gen-Y’s views of marketing

The deepening recession is making it harder for members of Gen-Y to find jobs and keep jobs, and they have a bigger debt burden than previous generations due to college loans and credit card debt. The impact? Gen-Y will spend more time looking at their finances to make judicious decisions.

Financial institutions targeting Gen-Y will want to put together messages based on honesty and singularity. “It’s all about sharing information and being a true guide and not a marketer,” one expert says. “When it comes to considered purchases, they want the face-to-face interaction.”

The Credit Union Brand: What Is It Good For?

This Filene report is yet another reminder that the credit union industry needs a national awareness campaign. People just don’t see any difference between banks and credit unions. And it’s not just the credit union industry that has a branding problem. Filene’s report shows that most individual credit unions lack any kind of real, differentiated brand either.

Economic crisis killing cool bank brands

Many of the financial industry’s most admired brand names have fallen victim to the meltdown. WaMu, a longtime comedic marketer, is gone to Citi. Wells Fargo swallowed Wachovia’s unique and professional image. National City’s “Simple” brand is going to PNC. And now, say goodbye to “Happy Banking,” thanks to Commonwealth Bank’s acquisition of BankWest.

4 banks + tough economy = 1 ad

Four community banks, each with less than $200 million in assets, have joined together to send the message that despite Wall Street’s failure and bank bailouts, all is well in Alabama’s Calhoun County, Alabama. The four banks teamed to create an ad campaign emphasizing the banks’ security, strength and ability to lend.

Barclays has opened a new flagship branch at Piccadilly Circus in London. The bank describes the project as “the first ‘brand concept’ branch in the UK,” covering 8,000 square feet of retail space over three floors.

“We have taken inspiration from retailers such as Apple and Nike,” said Mike Amato, Chief Distribution & Product Officer/Barclays in a press release.

According to one source, the design of these branches has been developed over the last two years at a warehouse in Northampton. This is similar to what Steve Jobs did when he built not one but two life-size Apple stores in a Cupertino warehouse to test the concept prior to public launch.

The branch has a large self-service area that includes deposit machines for cash, checks and coins, as well as an ATM that dispenses both dollars and euros.

‘Being:London’ is the first thing visitors see as they enter the bank. This online video wall art installation graphically represents London life using content from blogs and input from consoles within the branch. Customers can also access information from the magazine ‘Time Out.’

Outside of opening hours, the front of the branch will be transformed into the ‘Night Life’ screen. This installation picks up the image of passers using face recognition technology and cameras and creates moving silhouettes on the screen together with thought bubbles containing random messages.

With the opening of the branch, Barclays becomes the first bank in Europe to pilot Microsoft Surface. The Surface program allows users to “grab” digital content with their hands and navigate information about Barclays’ Premier banking offering with simple gestures and touches. TDECU is another financial institution experimenting with the Microsoft Surface.

There is a dedicated lounge for Barclays Premier customers complete with refreshments and wi-fi access.

One customer of Barclays Bank, Carole Railton from London, said she was keen to try out the new branch, only to be disappointed when she finally went. “When I keyed in my number all my account details were on the enlarged screen for everyone in the area to see,” she said. “Not happy about this, I spoke to a member of the staff who had no interest.”

“The bank of the future, surely will listen to its customers?” she asked.

The bank intends to remodel its entire network of 1,733 branches across the U.K. in coming months.

The project was designed by The One Off and architect Aukett Tytherleigh.

Here are this week’s stories of interest from around the web.
Click hotlinks for the complete story.

Money for Guns: Chase gives away prepaid debit cards for unregistered guns

Credit Score: Consumer Reports’ 12 best and 3 worst credit cards

Duel: Comparing ING vs. E-Trade click-through rates

Essay Contest: Credit union holds $1,500 ‘What Do You Want’ contest

Image Problems: Aussie credit unions in the same situation as U.S. peers

Pedal Pushing: 7.99% bike loans up to $2,500

Q&A Interview: Barclays sees how sponsorships can open doors in the U.S.

More Gas: DFCU-style gas promo from a Montana credit union

Online Media: Citibank’s exclusive sponsorship of popular Aussie website ‘The Fix’

Going Swimmingly: Visa happy with Phelps endorsement

Up for Review: ING’s £4 million direct mail account

Va Va Voom: Female employees pose in bank’s pinup calendar

That’s an Outhouse! But the sign says “Future home of Auburn-U FCU”