Fortnite, One-Shot to Understanding GenZ and Banking
Have you seen the film or read the book, Ready Player One? The film offers the most extraordinarily creative special effects, and Ready Player One is an explanation of a possible future. Ready Player One portrays a world in which people live out their lives in mixed realities. A world where wages are earned playing mixed reality games and winnings are used to buy real and virtual things. In some ways, science fiction helps shape the future, and in the case of Ready Player One, the future is fast becoming reality. The world that RPO described by author Ernest Cline exists today in the evolutionary concept of the multiplayer gaming platform known as Fortnite. In a not so distant future, we will be able to toggle between reality and mixed reality.
Fortnite is a multiplayer gaming platform designed with inviting bright colors and thoughtful game design. Anyone can very easily to set up and quickly learn to use Fortnite. Recently, I observed a nine-year-old teaching his 80-year-old grandmother how to set Fortnite up on her computer, and skin her avatar so that they can play the game together. Fortnite is the digital game of choice and entertainment for many GenZs.
There are three key elements of engagement incorporated into Fortnite that bank executives may find interesting to understanding the digitally precocious GenZ, whose attention will be challenging to grab. Fortnite is designed to be addictive – it’s fun and rewarding. The reward system cultivates the limbic brain enticing the right combination of excitement and frustration, teasing GenZ to continuously play. In Finding Deposits in a Changing Marketplace, a webinar given by Bruce Jensen, CCG Catalyst Practice Director & Senior Consultant, he discussed what bank executives will need to learn to keep younger generations going by adding some component of gamification to the bank experience.
- The aesthetics and functionality of your online and mobile bank should inspire GenZ.
- Great design is what GenZ looks, the design is not too simplified and not so over the top that they can’t make the most out of the products and services offered.
- To entice GenZ to conduct their financial management with your bank, the experience needs to be rewarding and engaging.
- The explanations of the products and services clearly define the use of and not just how-to.
- There’s always something new to grab the attention of those players who crave innovative experiences and players who collaborate with each other to build worlds. GenZ has the experience building, planning and funding their worlds.
- A service banks can provide, if they don’t already, is peer to peer transactions giving customers the freedom of sending and receiving money anytime.
- Another way to support the precocious mind of the GenZ is to offer education on saving, spending, and planning for life events.
- The flexibility of Fortnite’s platform makes it easy to transform based on the needs of the players – to do the same your bank needs to have a mindset that is open to discovering new opportunities. Born into digital consumers can intuitively download, setup and execute an app without thinking, and add the features and functions they really desire. The experience with their financial institution must provide the flexibility to skin for personalization, add products and services they desire.
GenZ is like Millennials, still, desire human interaction, but their means of interaction is slightly different than imagined. These young consumers are taught to lose small and win big – this behavior is something that financial institutions will need to take into consideration. Some of these consumers are learning about managing finances and rewarded for their ability to build and grow through gaming platforms like Fortnite. They desire a sense of accomplishment. Taking on this consumer will mean educating them about savings, retirement, mortgages, and planning for future life events in a way that they will grasp, learn and run with.
You may never play Fortnite but considering those that do can change your viewpoint on how you envision and change lackluster digital banking offerings. You certainly don’t want to lose this important customer by looking like a noob.
Stay tuned for our study on GenZ and the future of banking!
Sources:
Admirand, Leigh. (November 7, 2018). To Resonate With Gen Z Consumers, Lead With Emotions. GreenBook Blog.
Anderson, Monica, Jiang, Jingjing, (May 31, 2018). Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018, Pew Research Center.
Thier, David. (Apr 3, 2018). Business Lessons From ‘Fortnite Battle Royale’, Forbes.
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