A game that turned into a social gaming phenomenon overnight and made over 100,000 fans for HSBC in two months!

As the interactive agency of HSBC Turkey we were primarily tasked with bringing the brand closer to the 18-30 age group and doing that while associating specific goods & services (e.g. shoe, gas, plane ticket, washing mashine etc.) with the card.

Our research showed that Facebook usage was picking up rapidly in Turkey and of the
1 million Turkish members of this platform
(as of December 2007) around 65% were within our target age group. Given the collectivist nature of Turks and people become friends very easily in Turkey we have decided to use the Facebook platform to create a fun game that enable people to interact with each other.

Using the Facebook application platform we have created a social card exchange game with a 40-card set that consists of four different color series numbered from 1 to 10. Cards have pictures of different "Advantage" objects (shoes, bag, plane etc.) on them.

At the beginning of the game users were given 10 random cards. The aim of the game was to turn these cards into valid ordered combinations and win points.

The social feature, that made the game a success, was that the game allowed for card exchanges among Facebook Friends. The more friends are in the game the more one's chances are to reach higher points.

This feature created an immense amount of viral effect and also triggered new "Advantage" friendships. In order to get ahead hundreds of people added each other to their friends list. Several independent groups such as "The Brotherhood of Advantage", "Advantage Wizards" have been created by Facebook members to facilitate card exchanges.

The application has attracted over 100,000 users during the 2-month long campaign period and had an average of 8,000 daily active users. The success of the campaign received great national media attention and singlehandedly started the wide use of Facebook as a marketing platform in Turkey.

Advantage Collectors! has been recognized as on of the top four online financial service marketing projects at the prestigious 2008 NYF Midas Awards, the only international competition to recognize excellence in financial services communications on a global scale.

Application Page on Facebook (Facebook membership needed / Game can still be played but the campaign period is now over)