2015 Bronze Best Use of Mobile

MRM Meteorite

Intel

Dev Story/*Hack the Code*/

The Team
Gemma Phillis, Vika Spivak, Jon Wells, Ollie Easthope, Matt Greenhalgh, Anthony Brooks, Anna Bulman, Mike Krzyzanowski, Andrew Day, Marcus Keith, Elly Allwyn-Foster, Hannah Smith, Martyn Stivala, Sara Jennings

Campaign Overview

Intel had released its brand new mobile processors and created toolkits to help Android developers get the most from them. The problem was the brand wasn’t front-of-mind for developers.

So it looked to bring 400,000 unique visitors to its Intel Developer Zone and reframe the company as a key partner in Android app development.

By creating a mobile game about hacking that was itself open to be hacked, the campaign beat its targets and promoted Intel as a credible brand among the Android app development community.

Strategy

Android developers are sceptical of marketing. To overcome this challenge, Intel used mobile tech with a strategy connected to the habits of its audience to create an open source coding challenge: Dev Story/*HACK THE CODE*/.

The game was launched through GitHub.com, where developers frequently set each other challenges, and partnered with respected bloggers from the community to create content that gave Intel the credibility it needed. A sponsored Twitter campaign targeted influential accounts alongside the channels developers visited for news. And a hack night gave developers the chance to meet face-to-face, flaunt their coding skills and gain industry recognition. This allowed Intel to take its mobile project into the real world and build partnerships with the most active and influential members of a reclusive community.

Creativity

Dev Story/*HACK THE CODE*/ let you build your career as a developer from your bedroom to your own start-up. Challenges reflected stages in the development cycle, including coding, debugging and launching a mobile app. The game was open source, allowing developers to hack it and decide where their story went next. Internet in-jokes abounded, including a unicorn power-up, a YouTube kitten and an app name generator.

The game played on the competitive nature of developers, with calls to action written as bold challenges and players dared to take the story as far as their coding know-how could. They could then test their abilities using Intel’s toolkits, repositioning the brand as a key partner in Android app development.

Everything suited the personality of the Android community, showing that Intel understood its audience.

Results

The campaign beat its goal with over 430,000 visits to the Intel Developer Zone, vindicating the decision to use a bold, challenging tone of voice within the mobile game.

Average dwell time on the Intel Developer Zone was over two minutes, the highest dwell time of any Intel developer campaign on the site, and more than double the site’s average, suggesting the community felt Intel were worth listening to. A promotional video received 68,000 views, achieving in two months what other Intel videos had taken years to achieve.

Most importantly, the head of the London Android Group attended the hack night and was keen to set up more events in partnership with Intel – not only giving it a warm audience for future developer projects, but proving that Intel’s standing in the Android app development market had changed significantly during the campaign.