Winning the war for ICT talent

Since 2017 the IT talent market is under great strain. Demand continues to increase while supply is static at best. At the end of 2017 in the Netherlands 50% of ICT vacancies were difficult to fill. The financial industry is considered as one of the least attractive sectors.

How can a perceived traditional bank like ABN AMRO be seen as an innovative and challenging employer by digital and IT professionals in this overwhelming labour market? And how can we also generate no less than 400 qualitative CV’s from digital and IT professionals within one year?

Digital and IT professionals don’t naturally consider the financial industry as a potential employer. Without realizing it, they share interests with ABN AMRO bank. 'Tech savvy' people like games and challenges. They like to challenge themselves and like to test their skills. Using these two insights we built a bridge between the world of the IT professionals and ABN AMRO.

Challenge to prevent a global financial catastrophe

The Lockdown is a game that takes place in 2028. Cryptocurrency is now the only valid currency, but due to a hack by a notorious cyber criminal, millions of people are under threat of losing access to their wallet. To save the world from a financial catastrophe, players are challenged to solve problems within themes such as information security and blockchain. Through several steps, the players help Interpol find out where the hacker is located.

The strategy is built on two insights:

- Digital and IT professionals don’t naturally consider the financial industry as a potential employer. But without realizing it, they share interests with ABN AMRO bank in subjects such as artificial intelligence, info-security, cryptocurrency and blockchain. And ABN AMRO stimulates an innovation culture with which the bank contributes to innovation within the financial sector.

- 'Tech savvy' people like games, challenges and puzzles. They like to challenge themselves and like to test their skills.

Connecting seemingly different worlds

Using these two insights we built a bridge between the world of the target audience and ABN AMRO. We create a challenging context in topics that ABN AMRO also engages with in order to involve the target audience, in such a way that it appeals to the imagination of digital and IT professionals.

A world class mobile AR game

The Lockdown is the first-ever mobile AR escape room in the world for iOS and Android. In the game, Augmented Reality technology is used, making any room an escape room.

Relevant content, realistic themes

For the production of the storyline and the puzzle mechanism, we closely collaborated with experts at ABN AMRO and with Sherlocked (architects behind some of the best escape rooms in the world). Together with them 18 challenges were developed. These reflect the challenges and workflows that digital and IT professionals will experience at the bank working on themes as blockchain, infosecurity, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.

Blackout during the TNW Conference

The Lockdown was launched at the technology focused TNW Conference in the style of the game. During an announcement by founder Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, there was a blackout and the hacker presented himself to the audience via large screens.

According to Dutch tech publisher Bright, The Lockdown "is like being in an episode of Black Mirror". The Next Web praised the first mobile AR game in their review: "it excites, thrills and surprises you with its advanced game-play".

In a strained labor market, we positioned ABN AMRO as an innovative and challenging employer for digital and IT professionals in an unconventional way. The Lockdown was played over 90,000 minutes within six weeks. Players took a deep dive in puzzles and challenges about blockchain, info-security, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. There was an exceptionally high number of visitors to the recruitment website as a result: 10.641 unique visitors (213% above target). And no less than 1040 qualitative CVs were received by ABN AMRO in the IT department during the campaign period.