Most kids think economics is complicated and boring. Our goal was to make learning about the economy less intimidating and more fun. We set out to create a financial education experience that would get kids excited about learning and felt more like play than work.

Gift Maker combined live action, 3D renderings and HTML5 animation to create a simple, fun experience for desktops, tablets and mobile. Kids started with 12 unfinished toys they could build by dragging and dropping the parts they wanted. With over 3,000 possible combinations, each child could create a unique set of toys. As they built the toys, kids learned their 2013 price and the economic factors that affected it. Then every day for 12 days, PNC randomly selected toy designs, printed them on 3D-printers, assembled them by hand and sent them to their creators in time for the holidays.

With no paid media, PNC relied on direct outreach to schools, as well as PR and earned media to get the word out about the program. This year’s response far surpassed results from all previous years. In just 12 days, the program generated:

· 16K+ toy design submissions

· Average site visit over 10 minutes

· 132 million earned media impressions

· 24K+ total hours spent learning about the economy