What's the best way to reach a younger generation of workers who, for the most part, have a largely hopeless view of their eventual retirement?
ING U.S. has joined the mobile media revolution – and the popular gaming business – by creating its own mobile game app, one completely (but subtly) centered on the idea of helping younger employees understand the fundamentals of investing and actually saving for retirement.
STRUCT, available for free on the App Store for iPhone, iPod touch and iPads, hopes to even out a playing field that currently sees 141 million Americans actively involved in video games, and only 61 million actively involved in retirement saving. iPhone users also tend to play games almost 15 hours a month, making them a good prospect.
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The game, designed like many other popular online amusements, calls for players to work with building materials – steel symbolizes cash, wood symbolizes bonds and glass symbolizes stocks – to build increasingly complex towers, called "structs."
Three Nintendo-styled characters, the build crew, also symbolize conservative, moderate and aggressive investment styles – with a fourth character added to represent market opportunity and risk.
Blending the range of investment products and styles and using them as building tools, players will, perhaps subconsciously, become more intuitively attuned to the mechanics of real-world investment and the choices necessary for better retirement savings planning.
"We know many individuals need to do more when it comes to planning for retirement, and gaining greater awareness about accepted investing and savings principles is a critical part of that process," says Rick Mason, president of corporate markets for ING U.S. Retirement. "By leveraging the popularity of mobile game apps, we believe STRUCT will entertain users while exposing them to important concepts."
Mason said the company worked with several of its larger plan customers on the concept of a mobile game to help spark interest in retirement and financial concepts.
Players are introduced to each of the game's 12 levels through an instruction guide, while the game's "Build School" and glossary offer explanations of key financial terms involved.
To get a preview of the game and what went into its creation, please visit this link.
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