Measurable marketing gamification?

No probllama.

Kevin Flores led a cross-functional Customer Experience team tasked with creating a digital brand experience for Bank of America’s Rush Week activations on college campuses nationwide.

The initiative aimed to announce the bank’s new partnership with Zelle® and drive adoption of its mobile banking app among Gen Z students.

At the same time, Bank of America was running a global brand campaign featuring a quirky, talking llama and the tagline: “Llove Your App™.” The campaign highlighted the simplicity and ease of using the new Bank of America Mobile Banking App.

Extending this message of simplicity to Zelle’s peer-to-peer money transfers felt like a natural next step.

Concept Ideation

With just six weeks from concept to launch, we jumped into rapid-fire ideation.

Within the first 48 hours, Flores developed several interactive concepts—hand-sketched on tracing paper—and presented them directly to Bank of America’s digital marketing leadership.

The selected concept brought the campaign's quirky llama to life through a mobile-first game designed to educate through play. In the game, students raced to transfer money faster than their opponent—ultimately discovering why Zelle® was the faster, simpler choice.

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ABOVE: Early, lo-fidelity prototype screens to convey and test the user experience

Solution

Llama

Game

Bank of America’s

We designed and developed a native app game experience where players race to complete digital money transfers, using a campaign-aligned llama character as the guide.

Key Features

On-brand storytelling that extended the “Llove Your App” campaign

In-game messaging to educate players about Zelle’s features

Gamified learning to demonstrate Zelle’s speed and ease

Data capture & reporting, including completion & replay rates

Mobile-friendly UX, built for on-the-go use at college campus events

RESUlts

87%

completion rate

47%

REPLAY RATE

What started as a short-term engagement tool quickly became one of the most successful interactive experiences Bank of America had implemented.

WHAT CAME NEXT

Bank of America expanded the game into 1,000+ Bank of America Financial Centers as a product marketing experience.

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Bank of America reported that The Llama Game was the bank’s most engaging in-branch learning experience to that time.

The Team

Creative Director:
Kevin Flores

Visual Designer:
Rob Musser

Visual Designer:
Shannon Flowerday

UX Designer:
John Blackwell

Copywriter:
Aprill Jones

Lead Developer:
Kevin Vaughan

Project Manager:
Ross Cooper

Program Manager:
Bill Lickert

Account Director:
Les Morelock

Bank of America Project Sponsors:
Lea Moon & Katlann Smith