YouthNet
Challenge
When online charity YouthNet wanted to encourage young people to think responsibly about money, they knew they’d have to do it in an irresponsible way.
Kerb were challenged with devising a plan to achieve this!
What We Did
Set on a murky housing estate, Turf War encourages players to defend their territory by attacking the opposition with slapstick weapons such as dog poo, beehives and used condoms.
To succeed in the game players must use their funds wisely to buy the best weapons from a miserable artillery store. Failing to balance their budget could mean losing the game.
Ultimately we wanted players to visit YouthNet’s website to unlock exclusive weapons and discover information about financial management.
What Happened
Turf War’s cheeky concept and high-quality graphics captured young people’s imaginations.
Media coverage was guaranteed when flagrant use of ‘dog poo‘ in the press release pushed all the right buttons. In turn, Turf War was nudged onto its edgy target audience.
The game smashed its target of 250k hits in the first two months after it reached over 2.1 million players. The average player spent 10 minutes on the game and it’s resulted in over 100,000 visits to YouthNet’s financial pages on their website.
Despite the game release at the height of a gang knife crime epidemic, YouthNet didn’t receive a single complaint - put down to the intelligent and humorous way that Kerb dealt with the topic.
