IMC - Prosperity
When a brand with the payoff “going beyond the obvious” challenges you to develop an outstanding recruitment campaign, you just know that will get the creative juices flowing for sure. IMC, a global trading firm, was looking for new ways to attract the brightest and most talented students in the world. No ordinary recruitment campaign, but something that would immerse the target audience in the world of trading and get them excited for a future career at IMC. So, in order to make that happen, we went and built ‘Prosperity’ - the world’s most elaborate trading challenge.
Prosperity is a new global platform in which IMC challenges students from around the world to successfully trade on a virtual market. In this 10-day competition contestants will combine both algorithmic and positional trading to bring most prosperity to their island. The winner will become IMC Global Trading Talent of the Year and win a $25,000 tropical holiday.
real market mechanics
Don’t be fooled by the cuddly appearance of this game, because the mechanics behind it are pretty hardcore. Players upload their Python programs to trade on a virtual market that mimics the dynamics of the real-world markets. Testing their analytical, strategic and coding skills all in once, when they try to earn as much SeaShells as possible.
ETF’s, baskets and swaps, but with coconuts, piña coladas and pearls. Perfect ingredients for some serious fun.
Island leaderboard
Making a decent profit rewards players with new island tiles, growing their islands and flexing their trade-game to the rest of the competition. More profit also means more upgraded island tiles, turning a sandy shoreline into a lush, tropical landscape. The IMC office buildings even popped up on some of the best performing islands!
in-game tv-show
Prosperity even got its own news program, called Tropical TV. Anchorbird Corey Coocoo brought everything and anything newsworthy to the players on a daily basis. Keeping them informed on new tradable goods, interesting trading opportunities and of course the competition standings. Quite the character that Corey!
2023 results
Over 11,000 players joined the first Prosperity trading challenge, coding their Python program and building their team’s island. The players engaged with the tropical trading simulation for 10 days straight and were very active on the Prosperity Discord server, exchanging ideas, problems, solutions, frustrations and memes. At the end of the trading season 94% of all contestants indicated they are now considering a job in trading. Pretty impressive for an online game.
Services involved
Concept development
Art Direction
Copywriting
Script writing
Credits
Client: IMC
Agency: Code d’Azur
Account: Arvid van Kasteel, Renate Ebbenhorst
Project: Brendan Spijkerman
Creative Direction: Jeroen Thissen, Dani Polak
Art Direction: Oscar Polak
Copywriting: Oscar Polak
Design: Massimo Meijer, Julius Simon
3D design: Make ‘em say
UX: Pim van Daelen
Development: Erik Rave, Tim Goosens, Jose Peña, Simeon Borisov
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