The Gamebench
- Brand
- Blood Sweat And Tools
- Year
- 2015
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Quiz & Trivia
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Jam3
Objective
Discovery Canada was launching its original DIY series Blood, Sweat & Tools and wanted viewers to do more than watch — the network built a companion platform so the audience could influence who actually won the show. The goal was to keep people coming back across all nine weeks of the season, not just for the finale, and to pull that engagement across the site, Twitter, Facebook and SMS.
Solution
Viewers register on the Gamebench site, playable on desktop or phone, and jump into Tool Up! Trivia, a quiz on tools and home-repair know-how, or Extreme Challenges, timed tasks pulled from that week's episode. Correct answers and completed challenges bank as votes, tracked on a running leaderboard alongside episode recaps, previews and cast profiles for the five competing pairs. Players can dip in for a quick trivia round or come back episode after episode to stack up more votes. Once voting opens ahead of the finale, each player casts their banked votes for one of the finalist teams — on the site itself, or by tweeting a hashtag, voting through the show's Facebook page, or texting in — with the winner and the $50,000 prize revealed live during the finale broadcast.
- 1
The player opens The Gamebench, a second-screen companion site to the renovation series Blood, Sweat & Tools, from a desktop or mobile browser and registers an account to track earned votes.
- 2
In "Tool Up! Trivia," the player answers quiz questions about tools and home repair, testing the same knowledge the on-air renovation pairs rely on.
- 3
In "Extreme Challenges," the player takes on tasks modeled on the show's on-air challenges.
- 4
Playing trivia and challenges earns the player bonus votes, with more play converting into more votes to cast later.
- 5
Between rounds, the player browses bonus episode content, previews, cast profiles, and updates on how each of the five competing pairs is faring.
- 6
The player's performance is ranked on a platform leaderboard against other players.
- 7
Once voting opens, following the second-to-last episode, the player spends accumulated votes on one of three finalist teams distinguished by color.
- 8
The player can also cast votes outside the platform, via a team hashtag on Twitter, the show's Facebook page, or a color-coded SMS to a designated number.
- 9
Voting continues through the live finale broadcast, where the winning pair is revealed on air along with the cash prize.
