Real Life With Virtual Wallet
Objective
PNC's Virtual Wallet account came with unusual visual money-management tools — a Money Bar, a calendar view, built-in savings goals — that only clicked once you actually used them. Rather than run a standard product demo, PNC and Deutsch New York wanted to give people a reason to try Virtual Wallet firsthand, and to do it inside the ad itself rather than on a landing page.
Solution
The ad opens inside a full-screen iPad placement, where you pick a character — student, couple, or family — which sets the kind of money situations you'll face. You spin a wheel and move your piece around a board modeled on The Game of Life, and landing on a square triggers an everyday financial scenario, like an unexpected expense or a savings goal. You resolve each one using Virtual Wallet's own tools, so working through the board doubles as hands-on practice with the Money Bar, the calendar, and the savings accounts. Play continues square by square until you've made your way around the board, closing out a session that plays like a nostalgic board game while actually walking you through how the account works.
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The game opens as an Apple iAd: tapping a PNC banner inside a third-party iPad app expands it into a full-screen board game without leaving the host app. The board is styled after a classic roll-and-move game like The Game of Life.
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The player first picks a character — a student, a couple, or a family — which sets the kinds of money situations that come up later.
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The core loop is a spin of a wheel followed by moving the player's piece across the board by the number spun.
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Landing on a space presents an everyday financial challenge matched to the chosen character, which the player resolves by using tools from the PNC Virtual Wallet account.
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The spin-move-challenge loop repeats as the player advances their character across the board.
